The Sum Of The Parts
by UKHoneyB
Summary: I guess everything changes when family's involved. Formerly titled History. On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** "I guess everything changes when family's involved."

Chapter One:

Kat hummed to herself, the tune to _Don't Speak_ sounding flat to her ears, but that didn't matter to her. What mattered, was finishing off the business that was staring her right in the eyes.

Her American History homework.

Twisting her hair into a ponytail, she also clipped it to the back of her head, ensuring that no strands would reach down to tickle her neck, something which she hated when she was trying to concentrate.

"'Do your best, work hard, get a good job'," she mocked, sneering as she sat down in her chair, swinging her legs out in front of her so that they hit the wall in front of her with a rhythmic _th-thump_. Stopping after a few minutes, she settled down to concentrate on her work, only managing a few sketched answers before the house phone began to ring.

"I'll get it!" she yelled, leaping up from her chair so fast that she knocked it over, sending it clattering to the ground. Skidding out of her room, she dashed down the hallway, grabbing the phone before her younger brother, Sam, could. Sticking her tongue out at him, which he returned, she answered the phone.

"Hey, Kat Ryan speaking."

"You really need to tone down the formalities, Kitty."

"Roxanne, what's up?"

"Just a little trouble in our neighbourhood. You willing to help us sort it out?"

"Would I ever pass up the chance?" Kat said with a laugh, mentally drawing a map between her house and where the danger was once Roxanne filled her in. "Ten minutes and I'll be there," she added, having factored in side-alleys and climbable walls into her equation.

"See ya in ten minutes then, Kitty."

All but slamming the phone down onto its cradle, she yelled into the house that she was heading over to a friend's house to do some homework, grabbing said item as insurance and making sure to take her hair out of the ponytail/clip hybrid style. Not receiving more than a muttered good-bye from Sam, she took her skateboard from the garage and headed in Roxanne's direction.

ooooooooooooooo

Three minutes into her trek, Kat had run into a problem: a chain link fence, which was normally rusted and with a huge gap in the middle, had been repaired sometime in the past three days, and stood undamaged and gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. Not one to be discouraged, Kat got off her skateboard, threw it over the fence, and began to climb.

Reaching the top, she swung her legs over and let go with her hands as soon as she could. Landing with a soft _thump_, she began to skateboard, paying more attention than she had in the distance between her house and the fence.

Where she lived was mostly a residential area on the edge of nowhere, with very little traffic, the bulk being people on the school run or people commuting to and from work. As a result, the roads were busy three or so times a day, and deserted at all other times.

Between the chain link fence and a hidden side alley, however, was six lanes of traffic, a narrow connection between the two major highways, nicknamed The Artery by all the kids who lived near it. The highways and Artery connected to form a slightly wavering H-shape, choked with traffic at nearly all times of the day.

Skidding to a halt, Kat picked up her skateboard and headed towards a set of traffic lights which were extremely fickle in working. To her surprise, and the surprise of a few drivers, the lights decided to spring into action almost immediately, and Kat sauntered across, checking once in a while to ensure that she wasn't about to be run over by a soccer mom carrying her three kids home and not realizing that, yes, the lights did occasionally turn red.

Not bothering to put her skateboard down after crossing the road, Kat slipped into the side-alley, pressing a hand to her nose as the stench reached her.

"Looks like they're late in picking up the trash here," she muttered, carefully stepping over ripped bags, spilling their contents onto the concrete and providing an abundance of food for the local rat population.

One rat was particularly stubborn and, unlike his cousins, didn't scarper when a teenager appeared in the alleyway, instead staying to feast on leftover McDonalds and throwaway chocolate, baring his teeth when Kat got too close for his comfort.

"Oh, shut up," Kat muttered, rolling her eyes. As the rat's fur began to stick on end, she swung her skateboard like a baseball bat, and knocked the rat into the wall, knocking him out instantly.

"Home run," Kat said to herself, taking a running jump at the wall in front of her.

ooooooooooooooo

"You're late," Sara muttered, blowing a smoke ring, then another through the first. "You said ten minutes, it took you twelve."

"Had a little disagreement with a rat," Kat replied, holding up her skateboard as she spoke. "Knocked the bastard into a wall, so he won't be bothering anyone any time soon." Picking up a bottle, she sensed movement behind her, but couldn't react in time.

"Didn't know you were into charity, Kitty," Roxanne said, suddenly appearing and draping an arm around Kat's shoulder.

"Like KOing a rat's comparable to giving clothes to Goodwill," Kat said, taking a sip of the bottle she'd picked up. Making a face, she forced down about a quarter of the bottle before giving up. "That stuff is gross, how'd you guys drink it?"

"Willpower and knowing that unless we get money rolling in soon, we're gonna be broke," Sara said matter-of-factly, tossing the end of her cigarette into the depths of the shadows, briefly illuminating the staircase it landed by before being extinguished.

"Hey, it's coming, it's coming," Roxanne said with a large smile on her face. "Do you remember those idiot Mexican thugs we trashed last month? Turns out we're in deep trouble with their boss, but he's willing to strike a deal."

"What kind of deal?" Kat asked sceptically. "I know they were looking to expand –"

"And they still are. But this time, we've got an ace up our sleeves. They're willing to overlook us being here if we cut them a profit of our drug ring."

"No."

Not shouted, not screamed, not even said with a hint of anger. Sara sat where she was, eyes closed and shaking her head slowly. "He'll never go for it, he'd kill you for suggesting it. According to him, we own this neighborhood, and no one has the authority to override him."

"Did I ever say this deal had gone through me? Their boss went straight to ours and proposed the deal. Protection and security in return for thirty percent of our drug profits."

"Mikhal would never go for something like that," Kat said, stuffing her hands in her pockets and alternating between staring at Roxanne and Sara. "We're not going to be bribed by a bunch of Mexican wannabes."

"Kitty, Kitty, you really have no idea who this gang is, do you?" Kat slowly shook her head, and Roxanne smiled. The latter walking towards the former, Roxanne whispered into Kat's ear, and said something that drained the color from Kat's face.

"Are you serious?" Kat asked, disbelievingly, and Roxanne nodded.

The most famous gang in southern California.

The Brothers of Death.

ooooooooooooooo

The Brothers of Death. Kat really didn't want, and certainly didn't need to be thinking about that gang, not while she was trying to avoid being mown down on The Artery. She was thinking that her luck earlier was a fluke, as the lights were stubbornly refusing to work, not even after five minutes of waiting.

Finally, the lights changed and she walked across, eyes closed and sighing heavily, wondering how her gang was going to deal with The Brothers of Death. The small pockets of women-only sections were nicknamed the Larceny Ladies, even though Kat's section dealt with kidnap, threats and torture more than being sticky-fingered. Each Larceny Ladies group was assigned seemingly random numbers which correlated to their location in the United States.

The Larceny Ladies, among other small pockets, belonged to larger groups. Each group contained ten pockets, and in turn the group belonged to a pyramid. Each pyramid contained seven groups, and five pyramids belonged to a family. The family, along with two others, was owned by one of three guards, which were owned by royalty, containing the highest-ranking officials as well as the boss, who was currently Mikhal.

At full capacity, Mikhal could have 15,750 people at his disposal. It sounded impressive on paper, but many of the pockets were empty, either due to deserters or people being killed. His rule was being destroyed, and as a result, he had less than five thousand people under his command, and vast swathes of the United States had very few of Mikhal's people. There were talks that he was planning on withdrawing, and only using three strategically important states: Florida, New York and California.

All of this was on Kat's mind as she made her way home, going over in her head what was going to happen to them, to their structure. The Brothers of Death were more concentrated, operating out of a central base of operations rather than spread out and moreorless leaving the majority of decisions to the pyramids, with only occasional guidance from the families, guards and royalty.

"You're back," Sam said grudgingly, handing Kat a slice of reheated pizza, which was both wet and lukewarm, neither option being any appetite-inducing. "I was just planning on raiding your room to see what I could get when you were pronounced dead."

"Shut it," Kat said with a quick roll of her eyes, carrying the pizza up the stairs to her room. "Anyone call while I was out?"

"Yeah, some dude named Leigh. Said you needed to sort out some money for him, and some other stuff about larceny. It's all on the notepad," he added, walking back into the living room to get his hourly fix of video games.

Turning around, Kat grabbed the notepad and dashed upstairs to read it, slamming her door shut and hurriedly locking it.

_K of larceny._ _Money repayment urgent, need it back. Contact when and where, have news which may interest you. L of suborn._

Reaching under her bed, Kat pulled out an envelope stuffed with money, and quickly checked that it was all still there, and Sam hadn't made good of his threat to raid her room for anything good.

Suborn Underground was another of the pockets, like the Larceny Ladies, and the two that Kat and Leigh were part of often worked in conjunction. Other Suborns and Larcenies weren't so eager to cooperate, especially as some Larcenies were taking over the Suborns' roles and putting them out of business. Nevertheless, Kat's and Leigh's groups got on fine, as did they.

Unfortunately, seven years later, the words "Leigh of Suborn" was not what she wanted to hear being said on her voicemail.

ooooooooooooooo

"What is it?" Kat asked in annoyance, talking to the wind. The person in front of her she was sure was Leigh: the same body structure, the same way of hooking one foot behind the other as he stood, looking over the railings at the thrashing sea. The sea's wrath was being fed by the fierce wind blowing, the same wind which was ruffling Leigh's hair and flicking Kat's into her face, stinging like small whips.

"Katherine Ryan, I wondered if you'd even bother to turn up," Leigh commented. "Do you mind speaking up a little? This wind makes it a little difficult to hear things," he added, turning to look at her, and Kat's breath caught in her throat.

Leigh was blind.

"You've got more to worry about than what happened to me," Leigh continued, as if he could sense what Kat was thinking. "I've got a few unspent favors that you owe me, and I'm hoping that you'd be willing to help me."

"Then you thought wrong," Kat said, finally seeing a white cane resting near his legs. It had been well-disguised, masked by the white pants he was wearing, and also partly hidden by his legs. "I'm not in that business any more."

"Oh, I know. You moved pretty sharp when you escaped, and so quiet, I half-suspected you'd managed to find a way to live on the moon." Leigh chuckled. "I wouldn't worry Katherine, this is all legal and above-board. I just need you to track down and old acquaintance of mine, it shouldn't be much of a problem for you."

Kat sighed. "Who and where."

"He goes by a number of names, and I'm afraid my memory for faces isn't quite as it should be, but I'm certain of the country."

"Who and where?" Kat repeated, getting impatient.

"Moscow, Russia. He spends most of his time there from what I've heard. Got a nice little family, a six year old son and a beautiful two year old daughter. Blonde hair, blue eyes, just like a doll, or so I'm told. The son's already a fireball, getting into trouble at school and finding tricks and ways to avoid detection or, if caught, to worm his way out of it."

Kat mentally noted down the information. His children, and especially his daughter, could be a good bargaining chip if she was careful. "Anything else?"

"Just a list of aliases," Leigh said, shaking his head. "I don't know how many, if any, will be useful to you." He shivered, then looked around, staring out at where the wind was coming from. "Shall we meet back here in three days, at the same time? If you've been successful in any way, then I'll pay for your time. If not, then I assume we will be parting ways.

Kat nodded sharply, then said a muted "yes" when she remembered that Leigh couldn't see her. He gave her the list of aliases, they shook hands and, upon collecting his cane, she watched him walk away.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat shivered as soon as she shut her apartment door behind her, arms wrapping around to try and keep herself warm. In the back of her mind she was glad that Leigh hadn't requested to go back to her place for the meeting: it was piled high with junk. Due to the nature of her job, she didn't have much time to spend cleaning the house, and her wages certainly didn't cover her expenses plus hiring a maid to take care of the place.

Heading over to her kitchenette, she pulled a microwave burger from the fridge and placed it into the microwave, doing a small cleanup of the living room while she waited for it to cook.

When at last some of the carpet could actually be seen, and wasn't some vague "bit of floor covering underneath all the other pieces which seemed to do the same job", her dinner was ready. Grabbing it from the microwave, she sat down in front of the TV and began channel-surfing in between bites. Finding nothing which would appeal to the female sentiment (in other words, something which didn't involve barely-clad women gyrating across the screen in what looked to be the midst of a seizure), she turned her attention to the list of aliases Leigh had given her.

Scanning them, none jumped out at her. She either recognized given names because they were popular, or family names because she'd known people who had the very same name, but neither matched together in one name.

Going over them more closely, the one right at the bottom seemed to make more sense to her, although she couldn't understand why. Being at the bottom, it either meant it was his first alias or his most recent one, as the names were in no way alphabetically arranged.

After staring at it for a couple of minutes, and letting her burger grow cold, she began to sound the name out, putting the emphasis on a different syllable each time she said it. Still nothing, and she was growing impatient, so she turned to her least favorite method of research: the internet.

A few quick clicks and the top five names were crossed out, having been either obscure historical figures or non-existent, but the latter half began to look more promising. Some websites gave hints about the real nature of the news, but nothing more, while the rest were still stubbornly silent.

At last she came to a breakthrough: sixth from the bottom, there was a small section on the alias, noting that that person had been involved in trafficking of drugs across the USA-Mexico border.

Her mind jumped to the first, albeit hardly logical step of thinking of one of her co-workers, Berto Martinez. The article was on a Paulo Martinez, with a mention of a son by the name of Roberto. However, the article, dated four years prior, also stated the age of Roberto to be two and – no matter how young he looked sometimes – Berto would never be mistaken for a six year old.

"Leigh mentioned that he had a six year old son," Kat muttered, bringing up a picture of the family. 'Paulo' was much fairer-skinned than she had thought, with a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his note, and his blond hair looking distinctly sun-bleached. His son looked more like the typical 'Mexican', darker skin than his father, yet with traces of the freckles his father had.

Saving the picture to her hard drive, Kat worked down the list further, bringing up more and more information the more recently she went. More details about his life, how he worked, even more about his family emerged, albeit most stuffed in the back pages of newspapers and only accessible through caches.

Then, one of the photos made her freeze.

Paulo Martinez was dead center of a gray, grainy photograph, the type she recognized as coming from a spy camera. His hair was longer and scruffier, yet the freckles were still there, the hint of a smile on his face the same as the one done in Mexico. And he was talking to someone extremely familiar to her and indeed anyone in N-Tek.

He was talking to Jean Mairot.

Kat was still for a few moments before she became completely frantic. She tried to call up five different websites at the same time, her hands trembling and each getting in the other's way. Ignoring the rest of the aliases, she concentrated on her current one, gathering as much data as she could which, sad to say, wasn't much.

Once she exhausted the information about Paulo Martinez, she instead concentrated on Mairot. The picture information had it dated at least six months after his supposed death when the fungus destroyed Dread's base at Munich, bringing down the airplane both Mairot and Dread had been flying on. Dread had survived, disfigured but alive, but it was uncertain if the same could be said for Mairot. No body had ever been found, but then no one had seen him since. Max was never certain that Mairot had died, but without proof, all he could do was mull over than thought on his own until evidence presented itself.

_Which is just has,_ Kat thought to herself, a smug smile on her face. She emailed Smith's secretary requesting a meeting with him the next day, wondering how well everyone would take the potential bombshell that Mairot may possibly still be alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

The next day, Kat laid it all down in front of Jefferson Smith, literally. Aliases, locations, his family information. She'd done some quick, basic research on the remaining aliases, but had come up with nothing important, so left out the alias which met with Mairot until the end, and was certain that Smith had noticed the omission.

Finally, after informing Smith of all the other aliases, she brandished the photo, waiting for the significance to sink in.

"It was taken at least six months after the accident in Munich, six months after Mairot was pronounced missing, presumed dead. He's not dead, he just went underground, fraternizing with other terrorists."

"How did you obtain this information? I doubt it would be something you would research for fun on your day off."

"A friend contacted me, he said he wanted help finding this person. He doesn't know about N-Tek," she added quickly, holding up a hand to stop Smith interrupting her. "He doesn't know about the real N-Tek, or that I work for a spy organization. He just called in a favour I owed him."

"Seeing how easily you came across this information, why couldn't he achieve the same as you, and negate the need to ask you for help."

"Because he's now blind, and I have certain contacts which he doesn't have access to." Kat fought down an angry blush. She had been trying to keep her unsavoury past out of the conversation, and had failed.

"When and how does he want you to get in contact with him?"

"Two days' time, we're meeting up where we met yesterday to discuss if I found anything."

"I'll prepare a team to cover you, just in case it's a trap."

"With all due respect, sir, my friend contacted me as a friend, not as a spy, and I will continue to contact him as a friend while we're on a person-to-person basis. Once we move past needing to meet, then I'll be working as a spy."

"…Very well, I'll have someone research Mairot's reappearance."

ooooooooooooooo

She was taking a break in between sparring bouts, wiping her forehead with a towel when her cell started to ring. Picking it up, she bypassed the display, assuming she knew who was calling her.

"Leigh, I'm still in the middle of researching the information you gave me. I'll let you know if I find anything when we meet up."

"Someone's cranky," the person on the other end of the line said in a sing-song voice, and Kat closed her eyes in annoyance. "What, you don't remember me?"

"How could I forget?" Kat said, mentally sighing. _Everyone, and everything, is coming out of the woodwork now._ "How've you been, Sara?"

"Same old, same old. Got busted for carrying drugs a few months ago. Got out of prison and thought 'hey, why not give Kat a call?' On that note, you've really gotta stop leaving your cell number on websites where everyone can find them."

"I'll do that."

"So, Leigh's been in contact with you, too? How is your ex-boyfriend?" _He wasn't really my boyfriend._ "What's he up to?"

"Dealing with living the rest of his life being blind."

"Oh no, that's terrible! Is it sad that I still remember him as a spunky seventeen year old who designed our tattoos? The Ladies and Underground of section LC-109. He designed one tattoo for us Ladies, another for his Underground, and made a special one for you two." Kat made a non-committal noise. "His artistic talent must be completely shot now."

"Listen, Sara, I've got to go. My boss is looking at me funny, we're not supposed to take personal calls. You know how to contact me."

Without allowing Sara to reply, Kat ended the call, also turning off her cell so she wouldn't be disturbed again, and returned to her sparring.

ooooooooooooooo

Leigh pushed the door to his apartment open, living only a couple of blocks down from Kat, but neither of them knowing that information. Brushing a hand against the wall, to remind himself of its position, he walked from the entrance to the kitchen, pulling items out of his fridge.

A quick sniff of the milk – fine, not turning sour. Carrots were starting to get wrinkled – they'd need to be disposed of soon. His fingers brushed a can of dog food and he picked it up, putting some into the bowl next to the fridge. His dog perked up her head, although Leigh couldn't see that, and snorted loudly.

"Come on, Amber, don't turn your nose up at it otherwise you'll go hungry," Leigh said, putting the can back in the fridge and walking back to the entrance, detouring into the living room.

His nose picked up a brief hint of aftershave, freshly applied, and knew it wasn't him because he never wore the stuff. He frowned, taking a step forwards before calling out, "Who's there?"

"Did you tell her?" a voice tinged with a faint French accent asked, and Leigh shook his head.

"I just gave her the information, like you said. "What was so important that I needed to give the information to her? Half of it was made up, you told me so."

"There's only one bit of information that'll be important to Miss. Ryan, but passing that to her would have instantly raised her suspicions about you and how you obtained the information. A list of names, one of which leads to the information needed, is much less suspicious."

"If you say so," Leigh said dejectedly, turning back to the kitchen.

"I shall start to move on then."

"Hold on one second. What's your name?"

"Mairot. Jean Mairot."

ooooooooooooooo

The photo had come in handy aside from possibly showing that Mairot was still alive. After being cleaned up, it was obvious that the photo had been taken at night, and the constellations in the background had narrowed the location to somewhere between Eastern Europe and Western Russia. It definitely corresponded to what Leigh had said about the other person being in Russia, but then it bought up questions, namely why would he return there within only a couple of years?

Nevertheless, Kat was heading to Moscow.

Being an 'unofficial' missing, Kat was heading there in a passenger plane, all on her own with only a communications linking her and N-Tek. Unfortunately, it also meant that she had to pass through airport security and learn to deal with sitting in a cramped seat, sharing the space in the plane with roughly three hundred people.

_Thank God for blankets and eye masks,_ was the prayer Kat had uttered when she finally got off the plane in Moscow, having survived most of the flight by pretending to be asleep.

After collecting her bags from baggage collection, she headed for the exit and was mildly surprised at the lack of people at the arrivals gate. Even in the depths of winter at Orly airport it was packed with people heading this way, that way, and every other way inbetween. Here, it was deserted.

Kat made her way towards a small group of people, looking at the placards a couple were holding, but found none bearing her name. Thinking that her contact must have been delayed in some way, she traipsed out of the entrance, looked around, and walked back in, but was accosted before she could cross the threshold.

"Katherine Ryan?" he asked timidly, not looking up from where he was staring at the ground. "I'm Kris, a representative of N-Tek. Jefferson Smith asked me to accompany you while you were here."

"Have you got anywhere private we could talk?"

"I suppose my apartment. My car's parked over here," he added, gesturing to the left before walking away. Kat followed at a respectable distance, far away enough to ensure she had time to react if she guide was attacked, but close enough to keep an eye on him and , more importantly, keep within earshot.

"Da?" he said when he answered his phone a minute or so later, and began conversing with the person on the other end in Russian. "We're going to have to make a detour," he explained, switching back to English.

"Why?"

"Smith is sending more information through to us, we need to stop off at Moscow's base of operations to pick it up."

"Can't you just call and have it faxed over to your apartment?"

"I have no fax machine, and it would take too long to send it through email. We're better picking it up in person," he explained, finally reaching his car and opening a door for Kat.

_If this is a trap, it's a really sucky one,_ Kat thought as she got into the car, shutting the door herself.

ooooooooooooooo

However, all what Kris had said was true: a brief stop at the offices to pick up the information, and an uneventful journey to his apartment. On the way between the office and Kris' apartment, Kat skimmed the information, but nothing important or unusual leapt out at her from the page, and so she left discussing it until they were somewhere more comfortable.

"What did you want to talk about?" Kris asked when Kat shrugged off her jacket, looking for somewhere to put it. "Just leave it on the back of the sofa," he suggested helpfully, and Kat did as he said.

"I wanted to talk about Jean Mairot. Do you know anything about him?" Kat asked, sitting down as Kris poured two glasses of water.

"Only as much as the next person in Russia, I'm afraid," he said, sitting down next to Kat and handing her one of the glasses, taking a sip from his own glass. "I only knew that he was one of N-Tek's division chiefs in the United States, and that he was found to be a traitor. Interestingly, he was proclaimed dead six months before the photograph you found was taken, and yet he doesn't seem to be displaying any signs of pointed fangs or a disfigured face. I would add in an aversion to sunlight, but this meeting occurred at night…maybe that one is true. Sorry," he added, seeing a raised eyebrow of confusion on Kat's face. "Trying to lighten the situation. There's only two ways I can think of as to how he'd be alive in this photograph: One, he's a vampire; two, like Dread, he never actually died and went into hiding, doing the job a lot better than Dread."

"To be fair to Dread, he wasn't exactly hiding when we discovered that he was alive."

"That is true. Kidnapping one of the best friends of a nanite-enhanced agent and holding the friend to ransom is not the best way to keep hidden. I must admit, having seen footage of the plane crashing into the ground, I'm surprised Dread survived as well as he did." Kat nodded, finishing off her drink. "But, by those standards, I shouldn't be surprised by the fact that Mairot survived either."

Kat handed a copy of the photograph she'd found to Kris. "I take it you've never seen this person before either?"

"Never," Kris said after a few minutes of studying the photo. "What was his name?"

"When this picture was taken, he was going by the alias Boris Putin." Kris snickered. "What?"

"Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, Russia's two presidents since 1991. He couldn't have chosen a more humorous name. It would be like taking an alias in the United States which mixed the names of your first and second presidents, or your two most recent ones." Kat nodded, just as her pager went off. "More information?"

"I hope so," Kat muttered, looking at her pager. "RPTNTUAP, great." She turned to look at Kris. "Something's come up, I've got to get back to Del Oro." She leapt up off of the seat, grabbed her jacket and raced out of the apartment, letting the door slam behind her.

"Take your time," Kris added dryly after the door slammed.

ooooooooooooooo

"Something must be up, I got a page saying to report back here as soon as possible!"

Kat was annoyed, to put it mildly. She'd flown back in a hurry, managing to get a seat on the last plane of the day, rushing back to Del Oro headquarters, only to be told by Jefferson that there was nothing happening, and that he hadn't authorized paging Kat for any reason.

Still, it didn't stop her from shoving her chair away so fast it hit the wall, slamming her hands down on the desk and leaning over the desk to yell at him.

"Agent Ryan, sit down." Jefferson waited until she had before continuing. "There' a distinct possibility that the page was a ruse, a reason to bring you back to N-Tek. We're investigating the possibility that a mole within our organization is not dead, as we thought, and that he may well still have information pertaining to agents such as yourself."

"So basically what you're saying is, Mairot might be targeting me, and that's why I was sent the page."

"Quite possibly. I know you denied a request for a team earlier, but this has now gone further beyond just being a favour a friend has called in. I'm putting you under surveillance."

ooooooooooooooo

Munching on leftover pizza, Kat was flicking through the files on the other aliases, with the prickling feeling at the back of her neck telling her that someone was most definitely watching her.

That 'someone' being at N-Tek agent positioned in an apartment the other side of the street to her didn't make it any less annoying.

"Paulo Martinez…Boris Putin…" _all he chooses are normal, boring names or parodies. I wouldn't be surprised if one of his aliases was John Smith. Or even Nanashi No Gombe,_ she mentally added, dredging up some of her five-year old Japanese knowledge.

Glancing out of the window, she noticed the agent staring at her _again_, and was relieved when he phone started to ring. Reaching over the paper scattered around the living room floor (which was now covered in paper instead of miscellaneous junk) she grabbed it and answered.

"Hello…Leigh, what's wrong? We weren't supposed to meet up for another couple of days…new information? Sorry, I'm busy…no, still researching…can't you give it to me when we meet up…all right, give me twenty minutes."

Hanging up, she looked out of the window and fired off a few words in sign language. _Going out._ _Keep hidden._

ooooooooooooooo

"So what was the information you so desperately needed to give me?" Kat muttered as she walked up to Leigh. He was standing in exactly the same place, in exactly the same pose as yesterday, which struck Kat as a little odd, but she shook it off.

"I was informed that you knew one of the people that the Russian man had met at some point in his life, I was wondering how you'd cope knowing that a friend was cavorting with terrorists."

"It doesn't matter to me in the slightest," Kat replied coolly, and Leigh laughed.

"I guess that's true," Leigh said. "You don't care that much for your past, so I can see why it wouldn't upset you to know that others were involved in illicit activities too. Although it does make me wonder: if he's communicating with terrorists now, was he also communicating with them back when you knew him? And, if so, whether he pulled you into any of that business."

"Look Leigh, whatever happened with us is history, part of my past, and drudging it up isn't going to help in any way whatsoever. You know I spent time in prison, we all did. The only difference between me and Roxanne is that as soon as I got out, I immediately repented, whereas Roxanne still continued her old habits for a few months before we drifted apart. I'm not going to involve myself in any of that business again, and if this information you gave me leads me down that path again, you'd better hope you've got a good lawyer, because I've got a heck of a lot of information about you that would send you to prison for life."

"I understand," Leigh said.

"Anything more you need to talk about?"

"That was it."

"Then I'm leaving." Kat had only taken a few steps when her legs seemed to buckle, and she held onto the side of the bridge tightly. Her vision started to go blurry, then fade around the edges, leaving only a pinpoint of an image directly in front of her, before she fainted.

"Not too bad," a French-accented voice said.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat woke up slowly, drowsily, and with one hell of a headache. She opened her eyes to pitch blackness, which started the warning bells ringing for her. Moving her hands, she could only move them a few inches before they stopped, the metal restraints clinking.

She was being held hostage.

"I warned you not to mess around, Leigh," Kat said, slurring her words slightly and her tongue feeling larger than normal, almost as if she'd been given a local anaesthetic by a dentist.

"I was wondering how long that stuff was going to knock you out for. Trust me, took a heck of a lot of experimentation to get the quantity right without knocking you out instantly. Wouldn't have worked so well if you collapsed in your apartment after eating pizza," a male voice said, accompanied by footsteps on a hard, possibly concrete floor.

Kat moved her head around, trying to determine where the voice was coming from and also moved her hands discretely, or so she hoped, in order to activate her distress beacon.

"Won't work, we found your little beacon before you woke up," the same voice said again.

"Who exactly are you?" Kat said, and panicked a little when the footsteps turned and began walking towards her, quickly.

The blindfold was ripped off harshly, and Kat recoiled from the dazzling light. After a few moments, when her eyes had adjusted to the vast difference in brightness, she was able to tell who it was standing in front of her.

Someone she thought she'd never see again.

Jean Mairot.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

"So you saw Kat walk out of her apartment and down to the docks to meet someone. She then collapsed and was carried away by someone who, and I quote 'looked familiar even though I couldn't identify him' and your first reaction was not to follow them to see where they were going, but to run back here to tell us what had happened."

"…That's pretty much the whole story."

Max buried his head in his hands and the other agent took that as a good sign, a _very_ good sign to get moving before he was yelled at.

"Berto? Run a trace for Kat's tracker," Max said into his communicator after a moment of silently berating himself.

The sound of keys clacking was shortly followed by a concerned-sounding, "What's happened?" from Berto.

Max took a deep breath. "Kat's been kidnapped."

ooooooooooooooo

"Kat's been kidnapped. _Kat_? Miss. 'Has won over thirty sparring matches against you, including one when she had a broken arm.'"

"If you're going to yell at someone, yell at Malkott," Max sighed, leaning against the console.

"Malkott?"

"New guy, only been here a couple of months and came very close to failing the examination. The guy's scared of his own shadow."

Berto said nothing, just mentally skimmed through the list of agents who had recently joined, linking an image to the name Max had given. "I think I remember him, he barely passed the exam."

"'Barely'? The guy fainted during the Paris Countdown training mission when he was supposed to be disarming the bomb. I'm still amazed he became an agent."

The console beeped, bringing a halt to the conversation while Berto checked the results. Kat's tracker had her placed firmly in her apartment, but as there were currently agents tearing that place apart, and the testimony of Malkott, both Max and Berto knew that information to be untrue.

"Never said they were foolproof," Berto said, pushing his chair away from the desk. "It looks like you're going to have to do this search by foot."

"The old-fashioned way is always the best way," Max said with a wry smile before leaving.

ooooooooooooooo

"I'm aware, Miss. Ryan, that you preferred to accomplish your missions in a direct and straightforward manner, but I apologize if this meeting was a bit too direct for your liking."

Kat mentally rolled her eyes, taking a quick look at the weapon the guard was holding before turning her attention back to Mairot. There were a few other people standing around, most of them guards, and one of them the person who had spoken earlier.

"I've been tracking a few outer ring terrorists, terrorists who tend to work with one organization, but can be persuaded to work for others, given the right incentive."

"In other words, terrorists for hire," Kat snapped, and Mairot nodded.

"Precisely. In my research, I recently came across some information pertaining to N-Tek. However, given my assumed deceased status and the fact that I am considered a traitor to N-Tek, I wouldn't survive in the building for long enough to give the information I found."

"That's where you came in," the scientist said, the one who had been explaining about the sedative earlier. "Unorthodox agent with loyalties to old friends, pull a few strings to get her to help someone she used to know, then she's right here, listening to this info. I'd've thought an agent would have better sense."

"Sorry to disappoint," Kat replied with a smile than was more a warning grimace. "I guess I have a soft spot for ex-traitors."

"Considering you are one, I'd say –"

"Westby," Mairot said in a flat tone, and the scientist quickly grew quiet. "As I said, Ryan, I have only one reason for doing this, and trust me when I say there are no ulterior motives in play. This information is more useful to you than it could ever be to me, and simply sitting on it would cause some effects which I would rather not happen to anyone working at N-Tek, either the sports or spy section of the business."

"I'm listening," Kat drawled, her attention more focused on the bonds securing her hands to the chair. Although they were metal, she had found a small chink, a slight weakness in the chain linking her hands and the chair together. Her feet were secured with just rope, as even if she could get her feet free, she wouldn't have been able to move very far without being intercepted.

"As thought with me, there is a mole within your organization, possibly more than one, and they pose a significant threat to N-Tek."

"What else is new? We deal with idiots and megalomaniacs almost every day of the week. What makes this organization so different?"

"I would have assumed that, with the information that they have infiltrated N-Tek would be reason enough for you to be at least a little anxious about them."

"Not the first time it's happened," Kat said, with a pointed glare at Mairot. "Besides, I'm sure they're not as capable as you were."

"While I appreciate the back-handed comment, Miss. Ryan, this is the first time that such an event has happened. I was under Smith's jurisdiction while at DREAD, and every piece of information I fed to Dread was countered with information fed back to Smith, to counter Dread's plans as much as possible."

"Hmm," Kat said non-committally, testing the strength of the damaged link. It gave way by a fraction of a centimeter, and Kat allowed herself to smile mentally. "Would explain why Max was sent into some missions which would have suited more experienced agents."

"It would," Mairot admitted, picking up a manilla folder off of a desk near to him. Opening it up, he flicked through the pages as he walked towards Kat. Stopping a foot away, he pulled out one of the pages, and showed it to her. "Neil Rivers, one of the people we have managed to identify as being a mole." Mairot replaced the picture. "I believe he's been working for your organization for a few months, give or take. He's around your age, or so I assume." Mairot made to put the file back on the desk where he'd picked it up from.

"Wait," Kat said, and Mairot paused, the file hovering over the desk. "I need to – can I look at that picture again? I think I recognize him."

Mairot obliged, taking the photo out again and this time giving Kat as much time as she wanted to look at the picture.

There was no mistaking it.

The person in the picture was John Malkott.

ooooooooooooooo

Wearing civilian clothes instead of the standard N-Tek jumpsuit, there wouldn't have been much distinguishing the agents from ordinary members of the public, which is what they were hoping for.

Malkott had been forced to stay back at N-Tek thanks to his earlier performance, but had sugar-coated the effective demotion by relating the fact that he had performed much better in the technical missions than any of the others.

Regardless of what he said, Max wasn't too keen on the idea that Malkott would be their eyes on the mission. He would rather have had Berto watching his back, especially since they wouldn't have had to make anything up about Max wearing some sort of video transmission contacts.

"This the place?" Max asked, coming to a halt near the Del Oro Memorial Bridge. He didn't know what it was in memory of, nor why it was called a bridge, as all it did was jut out into the ocean, a long line of wooden planks leading to nowhere. A pier, in all but name.

"I…think so…" Malkott said uncertainly, followed by a couple of slow keystrokes. "Yeah, it looks like the same place."

"Malkott –" Max began, but abruptly stopped when someone walked too close for him to comfortably speak. "Malkott, 'looks like' is the difference between us finding Kat alive, and finding her dead. Is. This. The. Right. Place?"

"…Yeah, it is…"

Max sighed in annoyance, then headed towards the railings, using his nano-enhanced eyes to scan the planks, looking for anything suspicious. Various footprints and a cane implant were barely visible, but there was nothing else, at least nothing which seemed to be important.

"Nothing here," Max reported, although he knew that if Malkott was looking at the monitors, he should have come to the same conclusion.

"Waste of time?" Malkott asked timidly.

"I doubt it," Max said, looking around at the various shops, some of them boarded up. "If we had thought it was a waste of time, and there was no point in coming here, we probably would have overlooked something. Better to come here and find nothing that to not and overlook something."

"You're right," Malkott said, followed by a quick "huh?" when something on the computer started to beep. "What's that?"

"Incoming email," Max said, his eyes widening. Only a few people had access to N-Tek's email, and one of them was Kat. If she…

"It's from…'Akihaba'?" Malkott said, a hint of confusion in his voice. "Sounds Japanese."

"What does it say?"

"'Be careful where you tread, be careful of those you overlook. We have her, and there is no chance you'll be able to find her using your current resources.' Sounds kinda creepy. You think they're talking about Kat?"

"Without a doubt," Max replied easily. "Can you get a trace on that email?"

"I can try," Malkott said, but came back with a negative answer within about twenty seconds. "No, I can't. They've done something to it, I don't know what, but…wow, if I could find out what they did, it'd be amazing!"

"Berto version two, I get the message without needing to hear you ramble on about how great their email cloaking technology is."

ooooooooooooooo

"So you recognize him, then?" Mairot said, putting the photo back. "I wasn't expecting to get a response from you, considering how recently they –"

"Before you get any further, let me say this: John Malkott is an idiot. He barely passed the exams, only making it because his technological skill brought his average up high enough to pass. You get him near any kind of danger, and he's libel to…well, I'll leave that up to your imagination."

"It fits in with what we've observed of him: a noteworthy actor who would most likely have won a Grammy Award had he been in the movie industry." Mairot paused, taking another picture out of the folder. "Riza Miyashita, not as good an actor and tends to keep to the same role as a scientist no matter what mission she is placed in. She graduated near the top of her class at Tokyo University, and was offered a job in the states not long after, which she accepted. She's been working here ever since."

"I don't recognize her," Kat said a few minutes later, after close scrutiny. "I tend to avoid the tech-geeks at N-Tek: even if she's been saying hello to me for the past few months I wouldn't recognize her."

Mairot showed her a couple more pictures of people he suspected had infiltrated N-Tek, but none other than Neil Rivers garnered anything other than a look of confusion and a sad shake of the head from Kat.

"How many more are there?" she said, part annoyed, when Mairot pulled out a fifth picture. "If there's any more, then half the agents at N-Tek are moles!"

A small smile twitched the corners of Mairot's lips. "I trust that you are exaggerating: I'd hate to have the thought that there are only twelve agents working at N-Tek."

"Given the rate at which we leave or get killed, I wouldn't be too surprised. Nope, don't recognize her either," Kat added when she had taken a closer look at the photo. "They either keep well-hidden or belong to sections I don't venture in to."

"Two of them tend to pose as scientists, the other three as agents. However, given the information you have told us, only one could have actually infiltrated N-Tek so far. The other four may be waiting, and there's a possibility one of them has turned their back on this mission."

"Possibly," Kat agreed, working once more on the chains when Mairot turned his back and walked away. She could feel more slack when moving her arms apart, which meant she was getting there, slowly and surely.

ooooooooooooooo

"'Be careful of those you overlook'? I don't get that, who are we overlooking?"

Max, Jefferson, Berto, Malkott and a sprinkling of other agents were all sitting in one of the briefing rooms, the email Malkott had read projected on the front wall. "We've been searching through every single agency we've ever had contact with, and this doesn't fit anyone's MO."

"It could be a new organization," Berto reasoned, pushing his glasses up. "There's nothing to indicate this is from any organizations we've had contact with before, so the only option we have is to pursue the idea that we're dealing with someone new."

"It still doesn't explain where the overlooking part comes from."

"It could just be a standard beginning of any type of contact they have with people. The first sentence sounds generic, while the second more personal and relating to what happened to us."

Berto would have commented on that fact more, if it weren't for the fact that the email disappeared, replaced by a map of downtown Del Oro, a flashing beacon in the center.

A flashing beacon indicating Kat's position.

Before Jefferson could call out any orders, Max was already rushing out of the briefing room doors and heading for the elevator.

ooooooooooooooo

With a final, loud _snap_, Kat broke the restraints securing her hands to the chair. Upon hearing the noise, Westby rushed forwards, and was rewarded by a heavy, sharp chain to the cheek.

He fell to the ground, unconscious and with his cheek bleeding slowly. Before the other guards could react, Kat slipped a small knife out of the inner side of her boot, and used it to slice the rope tying her legs to the chair almost all the way through.

Standing still, she sized up the rest of the guards, checking for any possible concealed weapons that she could see. One of the guards to the right of her moved, and she reacted.

Spinning around, testing the rope bonds' strength, she quickly did a front flip towards the guard. The ropes broke at moreorless the right instant, sending the chair flying towards him in a mess of plastic and metal. The momentum pushed him back, pinning him against the wall with no way to reach his gun.

Her ankles twinging in protest at the odd movement, she bent down to quickly massage them, and activated a hidden tracking device for good measure.

Blindly stabbing backwards, she was rewarded by a howl of pain when one of the guards managed to impale his stomach on her knife, and collapsed onto the ground, clutching the affected area and whimpering.

She slashed the next guard across the arm with the knife, before kicking him in the groin while he was distracted. She knew he would recover before too long, so she quickly moved on to the next guard, who was painfully inexperienced and dispatched by a bruised arm.

Seeing that a few of the guards were recovering enough to draw weapons, she stepped back to where Westby was lying, heaved him up and pressed the blade against his throat, wrapping her other free arm around his arms to ensure he didn't try and knock the blade away.

"Now that five of you got embarrassingly thrashed by a girl," Kat said, pressing the blade further into Westby's neck when one of the remaining guards stepped forwards. "I think I'll be taking my leave and getting out of here. Mairot, I don't care what information you're trying to peddle, I don't believe a word of it."

Mairot chuckled, a sound which Kat had never heard being emitted from his mouth in the three years she'd been working at N-Tek.

"If you refuse to believe what I've said, then ask Smith about it. Ask him about the situation between N-Tek and DREAD, and the situation of me being the mole. I'm sure he'll tell you the truth, if he knows I'm still alive."

"He knows," Kat said tersely, kicking Westby in the back of one of his knees and pressing the blade further in, so hard that it began to draw blood. "With the knife, I thought the message was clear enough, but apparently it wasn't. _Don't move, or I slice through your throat right now._"

"He knows you won't carry out your threat, as he is really the only thing standing between you getting out of here alive and being subdued by one of my guards. If you kill him, what's to stop me ordering you to be killed too?"

Kat smirked. "Because I know you'd never risk it. What would be the point in bringing me here, telling me all of this information, then turning around and killing me? Surely easier to just kill me to begin with, wouldn't it?"

Mairot gave a quick hand signal to the rest of the guards who obeyed and lowered their weapons. Not taking a chance, Kat edged towards the door, backwards, still holding Westby as a hostage.

Reaching the door, Kat quickly removed the arms which was securing Westby's arms to his body, flung open the door and replaced her arm. She stepped backwards twice, then removed the knife and her arm and pushed Westby back into the room before rushing out and slamming the door behind her.

"'Don't forget to ask about Rachel being AWOL'," she repeated to herself. Mairot had managed to shout that information just before the door shut, and she didn't quite know what to make of it.

"A-agent Ryan, is that you?!" an amazed sounding voice said, and she looked up to see Malkott standing a couple of blocks away at the crest of a hill. Not suppressing the urge to sneer at him, she dashed forwards, slowing down when a couple of other agents, agents she recognized, also came into view.

She was quickly checked over by one of the more medically-inclined agents, and was pronounced fine with only a couple of minor bruises around her wrists and ankles. She paid no attention to any of it, and kept on repeating one thing only, and they eventually obliged once she was given the all-clear.

"I need to see Smith. Right now."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

Kat had to admit, the only time she expected to hear 'Rachel' and 'AWOL' in a sentence would have been one such as "Rachel is looking into an agent that went AWOL" not "Rachel has gone AWOL".

She growled, stomped her foot against the floor, and went to sit back down. She was in the room adjacent to Smith's office, and was under the eye of Smith's elderly secretary. No one was quite sure how long she had worked at N-Tek, but it was at least fifteen years, as she had dropped some information sparsely alluding to jobs Marco Nathanson had assigned her to do.

Finally a message came through the intercom, and Kat stormed inside Smith's office, refusing to sit down, instead standing directly in front of Smith's desk.

"Mairot was working for us all along? How come only you and Mairot knew this? Surely it would have been better for everyone to know; at least he wouldn't have to kidnap me to feed me information, regardless if it was true or false!"

"Perhaps it was a mistaken assumption, but I thought the less people who knew about Mairot's double-agency the better it would be for all concerned."

"Why?" Kat hissed, slamming her hands down on Smith's desk. "Why would it have been better? We would have known about what stunts Dread was going to pull, and we would have been better prepared!"

"In hindsight, yes, I should have told everyone who would intimately work with Mairot, but –"

"But nothing! I feel like I'm being pulled around here, running a little game between you and Mairot, where I'm expected to know how to play when I don't even know the rules to abide by. Why'd –" Kat stopped herself before she could comment on the information Mairot had given her, about the mole, or moles, in N-Tek. If they did exist, there was nothing to argue against the fact that they had Smith's office bugged, possibly the whole building bugged.

Kat's cell phone chirped. She ignored it, and Smith felt no obligation to remind her that cells, aside from those issued by N-Tek, were not allowed on the premises.

"Why'd Mairot kidnap me? Why'd he need to contact an agent instead of his boss and friend, why didn't he contact you?" Backtracking, she sat down into the chair sitting nearby, and pressed a hand against her forehead.

"Myself being the CEO, and Mairot being a division chief, it would have been too dangerous for the two of us to meet, even if Mairot is considered MIA, presumed dead." Smith gave Kat a pointed look, silently telling her not to spread the information that Mairot was alive around. "Kidnapping an agent, while still risky, is considerably less so than simply coming into contact with the CEO. As for why you specifically, perhaps he thought you were more capable of staying calm and remembering what was said in conversation between the two of you."

Pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, Smith wrote Kat a quick note before handing it to her.

"Precautionary measures. I really shouldn't need to give you this information, but it's better to lecture on about something than to ignore it and leave the other person unprepared. Will that be all, Kat?"

"I believe so, sir," Kat said, pocketing the paper and standing up. "I'll see you –"

"You'll also find on that piece of paper details of a three-day break you'll be taking to recover from the events which have just happened."

"Yes, sir," Kat mumbled, walking out of the office and starting to head home.

ooooooooooooooo

"So she really doesn't recognize me then? What a shame," a blonde woman said as she walked in to one of the living quarters in N-Tek's base. "I would have thought she'd remember me."

"She only managed to identify one of us, I wouldn't sound too upset over that fact," the other person in the room, a man, commented. He lowered the magazine he was reading and raised an eyebrow at the woman. "Malkott, if he's careful, may be able to keep under agent Ryan's radar for the time being, as at the moment she's not sure what to believe."

"Even after the meeting with Smith?" the woman asked, looking down at the small handheld television she was carrying, rewinding back to the beginning of the meeting between Kat and Smith. "Seems like she believes him, and by proxy believes Mairot too."

"Or she could be thinking that it's just damage control. Smith covering his own tracks with lies, and pretending to be sided with Mairot on the whole issue."

The woman let the recording play, pausing and rewinding over a small bit of information, the word 'precautionary' repeating over and over again, echoing slightly in the room.

"We need to see what was on that note," she said finally.

ooooooooooooooo

Cracking open the spine of the book she was holding, she balanced it on one knee, the message Smith had given on the other, along with a second piece of paper and a pen. Regarding the first number, she flipped to the page indicated, counted down the number of sentences needed, and wrote down the letter the last number said to.

The method used was slow and tedious, but it was considered one of the more secure methods of hand-encryption and decryption. Unless someone had the exact edition printed in exactly the same country, if there were major changes between editions, then the full message could not be decoded.

Working out the message, Kat wrote down the last letter of the last word, and looked at it. "'Briton missing, L. Find at once.' Well, gee, I kinda knew that already," Kat muttered, tearing up the decoded message and pulling out a lighter. She set the stack of paper on fire, before dumping it in the nearby trashcan and walking away. Pausing, she held the message Smith had given her up to the sun, and looked through the paper.

Barely visible, as the material had caused a slight change in the opacity of the paper, were more number sequences written. Memorizing the numbers as best as she could, she decoded the second message as quickly as she could, occasionally having to use the sun to render visible some of the numbers.

"'Briton missing, L. Find at once. Last seen in Moscow, Russia on 9th October.'" Kat did a mental check: the 9th of October was at least a week ago, and with enough funds Rachel could be anywhere in the world by now. "'Estimated destination Brazil.' Well, at least it's not too far to travel," Kat muttered, remembering the last time she'd set foot in the country. Two days spent traipsing around with nothing to keep her company except DREAD minions, Psycho, giant insects and the piranhas which had mistaken her communicator for a lunchtime snack.

Crumpling the encrypted note, and burning the decrypted one like before, she picked up the book she used as reference, and headed home.

ooooooooooooooo

Which, she reasoned twenty minutes later, wasn't such a good idea. N-Tek forensic experts were still scouring her place, looking for evidence as to whom could have kidnapped her and, after an offer of crashing at Josh's place, returned to N-Tek's base to rent a room there.

Dumping a bag full of clothes onto the bed, she looked around in surprise at the lack of detail in the room. There was a bed shoved into one corner, two shelves with one above the other, a couple of drawers attached to a desk, a wardrobe and a heater. The bathroom was off to one side containing a bath/shower hybrid, toilet, sink and a small shelf, and was again as basic as the room.

"Now I know why I moved out," she muttered, plugging in the phone which had been hidden in the wardrobe, picked up the handset, and typed in her ID number to connect. She heard a click followed by the normal dial tone, and replaced the handset. Looking around the room again, she sighed and sat down on the bed.

ooooooooooooooo

"Made any progress on deciphering the note?" the blonde asked, and was answered with a sharp, annoyed shake of the head. "None whatsoever?"

"About the only thing I can do is sit here and look at the note. I have no idea what book Smith nor Ryan are using, thus I have no way of decoding the message. Well, truthfully, I could decode the message if I were given every single book in the world and an infinite amount of time. Considering we have neither…"

The blonde woman frowned. "Where's Ryan staying at the moment?"

"Would you believe, three doors down from where you're staying?" the man replied, turning on one of the smaller screens on the desk, showing an image of Kat lying on her bed and looking utterly bored.

"I assume you've got the tracking device ready?" she asked, and he held up a small black box.

"Three steps ahead of you," he said as she took the box from him, opening it up to reveal a small device, about the size of a ladybug. "You should be able to plant in on something of Ryan's, no problem."

The woman smiled briefly before putting the box into one of her pockets. "Then I'll go and see how sociable Ryan feels."

ooooooooooooooo

"Kat, what's the rush?"

Kat sighed, scuffing her boot against the floor, causing it to squeak slightly, and turned around, dumping her backpack on the floor as she did so. Helena Symanski, another relatively new recruit, was running towards her, her blonde hair slowly working its way out of the ponytail which held it in place. She caught up to Kat and doubled over, gasping for breath

"I was thinking…do you want to have a spar? A duel?" Helena asked, once she had semi-recovered.

"I'm kinda busy at the moment," Kat said dismissively, picking up her bag and walking away. "How about a rain check?"

"Sure," Helena said, and Kat shook her head, wondering where the agent got her peppiness and energy from. "Where're you off to?"

"I'm just flying north for a couple of days. My brother is actually in a visitable place for once, and I'm taking the opportunity to catch up with him."

"Cool, see you when you get back then."

"Yeah," Kat said, keeping a look over her shoulder as she headed towards the hanger. Smith had called her an hour prior, asking if she could take the Hawk out for a test run, and also mentioned that he was planning a holiday to São Paulo, which she had assumed was code for "you'll be flying to São Paulo in an hour".

Keying in her passcode, the doors slid open and Kat walked through into the hanger. A quick glance showed that the hanger was practically empty, most people there looking as if they were finishing up their daily duties and were getting ready to head home.

_Lucky them,_ Kat thought enviously as she walked over to the furthest left hand corner, where the Hawk and various other equipment used mainly by Team Steel was kept. The Hawk was there, looking in need of a good paint job, but otherwise, thanks to the nanoprobes, was in perfectly good condition.

Glancing inside and checking for stow-aways (Kat had gotten paranoid after Max's little trip to the Arctic), Kat opened the roof and did a quick check of the systems. Ensuring that everything looked to be in working order, so she threw her bag into the back and climbed into the pilot's seat. The roof of the hanger above Kat opened and, after some warm-up exercises, Kat aimed the Hawk through the opening, and plotted a course for São Paulo.

ooooooooooooooo

There was one small problem with trying to find Rachel in São Paulo: she was one person in nineteen million, one in twenty-nine million if adjacent metropolis areas were included in the headcount. The upshot was that Rachel was a blonde, which meant statistically she only needed to be on the lookout for three hundred and forty thousand people.

Unless Rachel had dyed her hair, which either increased or reduced the number of people Kat needed to look for.

"Equivalent of dropping someone in the rainforest with a compass and telling them to find a specific plant," Kat muttered to herself. She'd parked the Hawk in an N-Tek rented warehouse and had gone out scouting the town. Somehow, she had managed to find her way into Ibirapurea Park, and was looking around the various buildings there.

She passed over the art museums, looked skeptically at the pavilions and settled by the side of the lake, watching the fountains as she tried to plot out her next course of action.

As blondes (and occasionally blonds) passed in her field of vision, Kat focused her attention on them, trying to match up their appearance with that of Rachel, but failing with every person whom she spotted.

"Looking for someone?" a female voice said, approaching Kat from behind. Kat rolled her eyes as she placed the voice, and turned around, half-expecting to have to lecture a subordinate agent on following her on a supposed vacation trip. Whom she saw, however, was not whom she expected.

"Miss me?" Sara said with a wide grin.

ooooooooooooooo

Sara had dragged an unwilling Kat to a nearby Italian restaurant, and was happily snacking on pizza and pasta in much the manner of one who knew their meal was paid for.

"Seriously though," Sara said, pausing in her eating long enough to form words, "Six billion people in the world, and we just happen to meet up in the same place at the same time. Unbelievable, especially since I can't remember the last time you took a trip outside of the States."

_I can,_ Kat thought to herself. _Sahara__desert._ _Too annoying at the best of times, least of all when Smiley is the cause behind me taking a trip to such a place._

"Me either," Kat said, taking a sip of drink and poking half-heartedly at her food. "I've been too busy working to really go anywhere. I'm only taking this holiday on the insistence of my boss. Two weeks' vacation every year, no exceptions. I just thought I'd go somewhere unusual this year."

"I can dig that. Hey, if you're not gonna eat that pasta, can I have it?"

"Sure," Kat said in a monotone voice, pushing the plate across the table. Sara grabbed it and started shovelling food into her mouth.

Now that she wasn't under the pretence of eating, Kat studied Sara's physique more. Even if she hadn't received the phone call, she would have placed Sara as a druggie from the moment they met. She had the stick-thinness of someone who abused drugs, and also had needle marks on her upper arms, the traces of where she'd been shooting speed into her system.

"I needed to get out of the country too," Sara added, taking a quick glance at Kat. "Things were getting a little heated back home, so I decided I needed a break. Good thing too, this place isn't half bad, especially Ibirapurea Park. Did you see the planetarium?"

"No, I hadn't been there long before you craned me." Kat winced, making a mental note to give excuses and get out of Sara's presence quickly. It' hadn't occurred with Leigh, mainly because she hadn't interacted with him on an almost-daily basis, or that it was business, but being with Sara was starting to bring back old habits.

"Sorry, saw you and couldn't ignore ya. What kind of double-el would I be if I just walked by?" Sara's fork clattered onto the plate, a sign that she'd finished eating. "What kind of desserts do they do here?"

"You can't be serious," Kat mumbled, holding her head in the palm of her hand. She waved the waiter over and asked him to bring a menu, which she regretted when Sara ordered two desserts for herself.

"Oh, and extra sauce as well, please," she added with a smile, handing the menu back to the waiter before turning her attention back to Kat. "I never asked, where do you work?"

"Oh…" Kat fumbled, the question taking her a little off-guard. "I work at N-Tek. I'm…" she struggled to think of an appropriate job. "Human Resources," she said. _Hope you don't mind me nicking your 'job', McGrath._

"I see," Sara said, raising her eyebrows and feigning interest. "N-Tek, isn't that the company which sponsors Josh McGrath?"

"Yeah, that's us," Kat said, hoping she wouldn't get grilled too much about her job. She barely even know what Human Resources _did_. "McGrath's not half bad."

"I bet you could thrash him in competition, right Kat? I remember you used to be quite the sports fanatic when you were with us."

"I wouldn't say fanatic –"

"You're joking! Whenever you weren't with us, at school or at home, you were always riding the half-pipes! Tony Hawk was your idol, you had at least half a dozen posters of him in your room."

"Being a fan of something is different to being good at something. I can be a fan of Picasso's paintings, but it doesn't mean if I try imitating his style, I'll be any good at it."

"Got a point there, Kitty. Still, you can't say you were rubbish, with all that work you put into it. You'd still give him a run for his money.

"Sara –" Kat began, but was cut off by an explosion. Reacting on training, Kat leapt over the table dragged Sara down and upended the table to use as an impromptu shield. The glass in the windows shattered, and Kat, Sara and most of the other occupants of the room covered their ears in instinct.

Once she was sure it was safer, Kat dashed out of the restaurant and skidded into the street, seeing the damage done to a house a block away, on the other side of the street. All the windows had been blown out and flames licked at the brick walls. Sirens wailed in the far distance, someone obviously calling for help as soon as they heard the explosion.

Kat looked around in confusion and fear: confusion as to why someone would bomb São Paulo, and fear that whomever they were, they had followed her down from California.

In the midst of the smoke and rubble, a blond-haired woman took of running down the street, away from Kat. Even through the smoke, and without seeing her face, Kat felt a jolt of panic that she had found Rachel.

"Guess this means I won't be getting desert then, huh?" Sara said, catching up to Kat. The latter just glared, and wished that she'd find a way to ditch her old 'friend' before it became even more dangerous.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

For the second time in two days, Kat found herself being prodded and poked and asked a number of questions relating to her well-being. After a few minutes, certain that she didn't have concussion or smoke inhalation, and wasn't suffering from any burns or wounds, she was left alone. Sara followed a few minutes later.

"You always seem to invite trouble, don't you, Kat? Ever considered carrying a rabbit's foot, or a four-leaf clover?" Sara said, meaning for it to be a light-hearted comment, but it struck a nerve.

"Wrong place, wrong time. I can guarantee it'll be my epitaph," Kat muttered darkly as she surveyed the scene. Since she was on 'holiday', she couldn't contact Jefferson, and with the risk of any incoming or outgoing messages being recorded, she couldn't let any potential moles know her whereabouts.

"There's an ice cream parlor a few streets away, we can go and stop there."

"I'm not traipsing around any more," Kat said, remembering that she'd rushed out of the restaurant without paying, and started to head back. "I'm sure you've got more interesting things to do than hang around with me all day," Kat said, pulling off a couple of notes and handing them to the waiter near the door. Someone else was cleaning the room, and a couple of people were being interviewed by police: it looked like they wouldn't be having any new customers any time soon.

"What's a holiday if not to relax? I'm not one of those people who, when booking a holiday, works out how many mountains they'll need to climb while they're there." Sara stretched her arms above her head. "And what's more relaxing than meeting an old friend and seeing how they're getting on with life?"

Kat just nodded.

ooooooooooooooo

Rachel shoved her hair out of her eyes, angrily, before being able to muse on the events which had just occurred. She'd been starting lunch when Kat had walked in to the restaurant, along with a friend, and watched as Kat's friend shovelled down plate after plate, while Kat looked vaguely disinterested.

Kat had scanned the restaurant a few times, but even when she came into direct eye contact, she didn't recognise Rachel, save for a flicker of emotion saying something along the lines of 'you look familiar, but I don't know why'.

Just as Rachel was finishing her lunch, and was paying, an explosion rocked the building. Rachel dived to the floor, hiding under the table and shielding her head with her hands while Kat upturned her table and used it as a shield. As Rachel stayed hidden, even when Kat rushed out of the building, Rachel ran through the usual suspects before thinking of the minor ones, and then wondering if the person she had been following was behind it all.

Once the chatter started up again, Rachel moved out of her hiding place and had a look around. The building was pretty much undamaged, save for the door where Kat had rushed out. A couple of people stumbled through the doors, bleeding, and Rachel rushed forwards, asking if there was any first-aid equipment nearby. One of the waiters shrugged his shoulders while a second said he didn't think they had anything like that.

Having to make do, Rachel took off her jacket and began tearing at the seams, splitting it roughly in half. One of them had a large second of glass embedded in his arm, while the other had a more straightforward open wound, no glass. Giving one half of her jacket to the man, she told him to press it against the wound, but to not disturb the glass if he could help it, while pressing the other half against the woman's stomach, stemming the flow of blood.

Certain that both seemed to be safe, Rachel stood up and glanced around the room. No one else was injured thus she attempted to take her leave, grabbing her bag and walking out of the restaurant, only to be intercepted by a police officer and questioned in Portuguese.

"_No, I didn't see who set the bomb off. I was in here the whole time_," she tried to reason, growing exasperated. This was the third time she'd said moreorless the same thing, and it wasn't getting through.

"_Are you sure on that fact?_" he asked again, and Rachel nearly slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead in a show of annoyance. Her eyes slid to the doorframe visible just behind the officer, and saw Kat, plus friend, walking back in to the restaurant. She pressed down the panic she was beginning to feel, and casually watched Kat look around, before handing a few notes to a waiter who was standing near the door, and whose main purpose was to say to people that the restaurant would be closed for the rest of the day. The waiter pocketed the money, and both he and Rachel watched as the two women walked away, heading down the street in the opposite direction to where the blast had occurred.

"_All right,_" the police officer said, writing down something in his notebook before tearing a page off and handing it to Rachel. "_Keep to the _ _São Paulo__ area, we may need to interview you again._"

Rachel nodded, taking the paper and stuffing it in her skirt pocket. Muttering something under her breath, which the officer couldn't hear or, even if he could, couldn't understand, she walked out of the restaurant and began to tail Kat, despite all her training telling her than what she was planning on doing was utterly stupid.

ooooooooooooooo

The hairs on the back of Kat's neck began to stand up on end and, from Sara's facial expression, so were her friend's. It was one of the defense mechanisms the Larceny Ladies in Kat's group had perfected: the art of subconsciously knowing when someone was following them.

Catching Sara's eye, Kat extended her index finger, followed by her little finger and then gave a sideways thumbs-up signal. Sara didn't nod, just returned the sideways thumbs-up. Taking three more steps forward, they both turned around at the same instance, Kat's eyes widening when she saw who had been trailing them.

"Rachel…what're you doing here?" Kat asked, once the initial shock had worn off.

"On vacation," Rachel replied simply, switching her gaze from Kat to Sara. "I decided I needed a change of scenery, so I came here."

"Kinda weird," Sara said, grinning lop-sidedly. "You guys know each other?"

"Used to work in the same department a couple of years ago, until Rachel here got a promotion and moved across the ocean to Europe. Haven't seen her in months," Kat supplied, looking at Rachel as if to say 'don't argue with me'.

"Has it already been months?" Rachel said, ignoring Sara. She hadn't expected to see Kat here, let alone with a friend, and was beginning to get anxious. "I admit, I haven't been paying much attention to the time. How have you been doing?"

"Same old, same old," Kat began, noticing Sara begin to shift her weight from one leg to the other, looking at the ground as she did so. "Bored?" she added, looking at Sara as the latter's head jerked up.

"Well, yeah…" Sara said, coloring up slightly. Kat rummaged through her purse and handed Sara some money, with a quick comment about going to find some dessert.

"An old friend, I presume?" Rachel said with a raised eyebrow once Sara was out of ear-shot.

"Does it matter if she's an old friend or a new friend?" Kat replied haughtily, glaring at Rachel. "You'd better have a good excuse for skipping out on Moscow: that's the only reason I'm here in this damn country."

Despite herself, Rachel smirked. "Like the first time you met Max then. No communication from you, so we sent in –"

"An arrogant, self-serving teenage agent."

"Not so shockingly, those exact words could be used to describe you when you first joined."

"Ha, ha," Kat said with a sneer. "So, what's the deal? Why're you here instead of in Russia tracking down Dragonelle?"

"Received intelligence reports that she had moved from Russia to Brazil, and I was sent over here to see if the intelligence reports were correct. Unfortunately, I've been scouring the country for the past week with no success: even the people who sent the intelligence reports have said that they don't know where she is."

"Fair enough," Kat said, not believing one word that Rachel had just said. She'd known the other agent for four years, and had learned to pick up on the little quirks Rachel had: especially those relating to her hiding the truth or even blatantly lying about a situation.

"I was planning on calling Smith and reporting in –" Kat narrowed her eyes slightly: Rachel was shifting a lot of weight onto her left leg "– but I've been too busy trying to chase down Dragonelle to have any time to submit a proper report."

_You're forgetting, Rach, this is the person who knew you were going to chase Vostok halfway around the world for revenge, and got Smith to intervene before you could act on that plan,_ Kat thought. _I kinda miss those days. No Dread, no mutants passing as terrorists and definitely no nanite-enhanced agent to mess things up._

"Well, now that I'm here –" Kat paused, seeing Sara walking back towards them, and was very close to being able to hear what they were saying "– everything's been running as normal since you left, although I don't doubt a visit from their old boss would do them any harm," she added just as Sara sidled up to her.

"Finished catching up?" Sara asked, and Kat nodded. "Good, 'cause we've still got a lotta ground to cover. Unlike your friend…"

"Rachel."

"Who only had a few months of catching up, we've got years. Enjoy the rest of your vacation!" Sara yelled back to Rachel, waving and dragging Kat away.

ooooooooooooooo

Rachel watched the two old friends fade into the distance, before contacting the communication chip in her ear and waiting for the frequency to dial through.

"I thought I said not to contact me until Monday," a gruff voice said on the other side of the communication.

"I've got some new information on our situation," Rachel said, looking around to make sure no one was close enough to over-hear her conversation. "N-Tek's gotten twitchy fingers. Someone was sent to try and locate me and they succeeded."

"That could be a problem. You're under jurisdiction of N-Tek, yet any orders you get from them will counter all that you've worked for so far."

"I know, which is why I contacted you. Nothing seems to be amiss so far, but I thought it best I warn you, just in case I seem to go AWOL from your point of view."

"I understand. Take care."

"I will, daddy."

ooooooooooooooo

_That was a total bust,_ Kat thought to herself and she flopped onto the bed of a local hotel she had checked in to. She'd located Rachel, figured out she was lying through her teeth, and…nothing much else. She stared up at a stain extremely noticeable against the white ceiling, and hoped that it was simple mould, and nothing more extreme like certain bodily fluids.

Rolling over on to her stomach, she let her head hang over the edge of the bed, trying to use the extra blood to think better. She now had an idea of what Rachel looked like, although having met her, there was no saying that she wouldn't change her appearance as soon as she possibly could.

"Heck, for all I know, Rachel could be flying off to somewhere in Africa right now," Kat muttered, sitting up properly. "All right, first thing's first: get back to N-Tek, tell Smith about Rachel, and figure out what to do from there."

Kat yawned, rubbing the back of her hand against her eyes. It was only eight PM local time, three PM back in Del Oro, yet she had been on the go for over twelve hours according to her internal body clock. It was thusly screaming at her to get some sleep, an order she was glad to fulfill.

ooooooooooooooo

The next morning, Kat quickly checked out of the hotel and all but ran back to the warehouse where she had parked Hawk, hoping it was still there and that Max hadn't needed it for an impromptu mission. She found the aircraft exactly how and where she'd left it, and piloted it back home, her mind still in São Paulo and, more specifically on Rachel.

_What was she lying about? There was nothing about her mission which she needed to hide, especially not from me._ Kat frowned, making slight adjustments on her flight path.

"I wonder how quickly she's gonna skip out on São Paulo? She's probably alerted to the fact that N-Tek knows where she is, now's the perfect time for her to disappear again."

Kat's phone started ringing, and she picked it up, canceling the call as soon as she saw whose number it was. Sara was calling her, most likely wondering where she had disappeared to.

"Sorry, Sara," Kat said to herself once more. "Cutting and running on you, I don't think you'd like to know that, like Leigh, I've got enough dirt on you to put you in jail."

ooooooooooooooo

Despite what Kat was fearing, Rachel had no intention of disappearing from São Paulo any time soon, even if the police hadn't told her to keep local. She also hadn't been completely lying about Dragonelle either: she had disappeared from Russia, but no one had any indication of where she'd disappeared to, and thus Rachel's team had been split up and sent around the world.

Rachel had just happened to be in the same city, in the same area and at the same time as Kat, which was more coincidences than the former was willing to ignore. Once she'd made the call, Rachel decided to wander around the town to see if she could garner any clues from the bombing.

The area where the bomb had detonated was roped off, preventing anyone from wandering around. Fortunately, all the nearby buildings were restaurants, so no one was forcibly displaced from their homes, but it also made Rachel's job a whole lot harder. Without N-Tek jurisdiction, she had no power over the police, and thus unable to order them to stand to the side while she looked around. The best she could do was linger beside the crime scene tape, and see if she could pick up anything useful.

After about five minutes, she gave up, having heard nothing but mutter about families and hobbies, nothing relating to the explosion at all.

"I'm going to be here for a while," she said to herself as she walked away.

ooooooooooooooo

As soon as she landed in N-Tek's hanger, a junior agent scurried up to Kat and informed her, rather breathlessly, that Jefferson wanted to talk to her immediately. Her first thought went to the explosion, and whether Jefferson was going to berate her for it or not.

"Tell him I'll be there in a few," she said after a moment's deliberation, and the junior agent nodded before scurrying back the way he came. She grabbed her bag from the back seat and wandered over to where the agent's rooms where, finding her temporary accommodation. Throwing the bag onto the bed, she did a quick check of the room to ensure nothing was out of place before heading up to where Jefferson's office was.

"Kat, you are all right then? I was beginning to wonder," Jefferson said as Kat opened the door, and he beckoned her to sit down. "What happened?"

"Short version: explored the town, met an old friend, had lunch with said friend, bomb exploded and then when we were walking away, Rachel was following us, or at least trying."

"Did you get any information on the bombing?"

"Saw someone running away after the bomb detonated. Blonde hair, female, hard to distinguish anything else through all the dust and debris. At first I though it was Rachel, but when we met her, she'd had her hair dyed.

"She didn't say anything worth knowing," Kat said before Jefferson could ask about it. "Well, she gave me a spiel about following intelligence reports about Dragonelle skipping out on Russia and ending up in São Paulo, all complete lies."

Jefferson raised his eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"

"Please, don't tell me you don't remember her wanting to chase down Vostok four years ago. Her voice says one thing, her body another, and I can pick up on when it doesn't match." Kat paused. "She's up to something, but I don't know what. I'd –"

"You're not in charge of this investigation, Agent Ryan, as much as you'd like to be." Jefferson rifled through the paper on his desk, not looking up and meeting Kat's eyes. "I'll send down a small team of agents to investigate this possibility, and to bring Rachel back here by force, if necessary."

Kat ventured to say something about the moles within N-Tek, but once again found her over-cautiousness holding her back. Jefferson saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced up.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" he asked, and Kat shook her head slowly.

"No, sir."

"Then you may go."

Kat stood up and walked out of the room, footsteps echoing behind her as she left. Jefferson leaned back in his chair, feeling an oncoming headache. The news that Mairot was alive, while not unexpected, had thrown him for a loop. No one had managed to get any information on the person Mairot had been meeting with, and until they did, there was nothing he could do with the information Kat had given him.

Pulling up a list of the agents at N-Tek, he selected a group of three: Helena Symanski, Eric Auxier and Kurt Dorais. Pressing a button in the bottom of the screen, he quickly composed a page and clicked 'send'. Two hours later, after a quick briefing, they were on their way to São Paulo.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: A few side notes: Murtaugh, Grange and Diamon are all agents mention in the Max Steel show. Murtaugh and Grange both have character models assigned to them – Murtaugh in episodes 2 (the person standing next to Nez in the airport) and 13 (one of the people checking the UN, and standing behind Nez when he gives Rachel the report), and Grange in episode 13 (one of the two people in the car with Sophia). Flight information is taken from fltplan(dot)com and Simurgh is used with permission from Akili.

Chapter Six:

_~Four years previously~_

Ripping her pager off of her belt, Kat sighed in frustration as she looked at the message. Yet another call from N-Tek: she was beginning to wonder why she accepted the job now.

Well, actually, she did know why, she was just beginning to regret her decision, especially since it was cutting into her social life. Dumping her shopping in the trunk, she slipped into the driver's seat, turned on the ignition and began heading towards N-Tek headquarters.

She could have parked her car in one of the many car parks dotted along Del Oro Bay and taken the underground system N-Tek had, but she wasn't in the mood to mess around with security clearance, finding a parking space and having to wait for one of the carriages to arrive from where it was stationed. As a result, she opted for taking the bridge primarily used by tourists and extreme sports fanatics instead.

Despite having lived in Del Oro for two years, the N-Tek building hadn't conjured up any thoughts other than 'wonder what they do there', even though N-Tek was the company where most of her sports equipment came from. She knew they did tours (at least of the sports side of the business), but had never found the time to actually attend one.

Now? She was using the N-Tek branding as a cover, working as a secret agent for N-Tek's CEO and head of counter-terrorism, Jefferson Smith.

He was also the adopted father of up and coming extreme sports star Josh McGrath. The same Josh McGrath who always seemed to be hanging around N-Tek whenever she was annoyed. Fortunately for him, he didn't seem to be in a chatty mood, and Kat blazed past him, slamming the front door to N-Tek behind her.

Although inside N-Tek was warmer than outside, it remained at a pleasantly warm temperature, which was a good start in cooling down Kat's temper. Hearing her pager go off again, she checked it and headed down to where the corridors branched: leading right for the sports facilities, and left for the 'business' side of N-Tek.

"Ryan, AO72," Kat said clearly, pressing and holding the elevator call button as she did so. Waiting a few seconds, she got on the elevator when it arrived and stepped in to it, watching the numbers click down from G to L3. Muttering something about today being her day off, she waited for the doors to open and walked out, running straight into Rachel.

"You're late, Miss Ryan. Again."

"I'm supposed to be on call twenty-four seven then?" Kat muttered, side-stepping Rachel and walking towards one of the briefing rooms.

"It would be nice of you to respond promptly in an emergency," Rachel replied, following a few steps behind Kat.

"This _is_ prompt, and if you don't like it, you can be assigned lead agent to another group."

"Wouldn't it be easier and quicker for all concerned if you were the one to move?"  
"Bite me, Leeds."

Reaching the briefing room, Kat slammed her palms into the door, sending it swinging towards the inner wall. Slipping through the opening, Kat didn't even glance behind her to see Rachel, slightly startled by the door, stop it just before it hit her nose.

Settling down into a seat as far away from the door as she could, Kat glanced around to see the agents already settled into the room, and quickly joined by Rachel. Elizabeth Grange, Peter Hugins, Jake Nez, Travis Murtaugh and Matthew Park were all present, and Kat mentally raised an eyebrow. At most she'd only seen two agents, three at the most, sent on a mission in the few months she'd been at N-Tek, which indicated something of a problem in her mind.

"Earlier this morning," Jefferson began once Rachel had sat down, "N-Tek received an email from Ivan Vostok. In it, he detailed that an MI-6 officer and his family have been taken hostage. I confirmed with MI-6: they are an agent short and they too received the email."

"Why is this our problem?" Matthew commented, drawing the attention of everyone towards him. "We've never gotten contact from any other organization when one of their agents has gone missing: why is it different now?"

"This kidnapping, although directed at MI-6, has a knock-on effect upon N-Tek," Jefferson said, looking around the room, his attention focusing on Rachel for a split-second longer than the rest.

"Agents Grange, Hugins, Nez, Murtaugh, Park and Ryan will be heading this case, with Nez appointed lead field agent." Jefferson glanced quickly at Rachel again, but said nothing of it. As the agents started to stir, Elizabeth asked the question which was preying on everyone's minds.

"What're the names of the people who were kidnapped?"

"James, Amanda and Julie Leeds," Rachel replied. "My family."

ooooooooooooooo

Once they had gotten out of the briefing room, Kat and the other agents assigned to the mission had headed one way, Rachel heading in the opposite direction. Considering Rachel had left with no discussion, no arguments over Smith's choice of agents, Kat felt there was something up.

Making a quick story about having to meet up with one of her friends, Kat slipped away from the group and began to tail Rachel, immediately knowing where she was heading after a few turns.

N-Tek's hanger.

Allowing the door to the hanger to swing shut behind Rachel, Kat stood around a corner, mentally ticking off the seconds and occasionally casting sly glances in the direction of the door whenever she heard it open.

After about ten minutes, Rachel walked out of the hanger, exchanging a few words with Chuck before leaving, this time heading in the direction of N-Tek's living quarters. Chuck headed in Kat's direction, and they both gave each other curt nods, acknowledging each other's presence, but neither wanting to strike up a conversation.

Kat watched Chuck leave, before sneaking into the hanger to see what, if any, Rachel had planned out. The only thing was, everything looked perfectly normal. People were still trickling out, a few acknowledging Kat's presence, but most hurrying out of the door, eager to get home, have some food and get some sleep.

For Kat, none of those options were scheduled for her that night.

"Hey, which craft did Leeds come to see?" Kat asked after spotting one of the nearby aircraft mechanics and walking over to him.

"Leeds? She, uh, was looking at our new aircraft, Simurgh, wanted to know the details of it. Seemed pretty interested for a, y'know, street agent."

_I bet she was,_ Kat thought, frowning slightly. "Was Marshak here? Did Leeds talk to him?"

"Yeah, she was yakking it up with him for a while, mostly talking about her speed and storage capabilities. Seemed pretty interested, unlike a lot of agents. Fastest craft we've built, goes faster than Concorde in tests."

"Uh-huh," Kat said, her limited interest quickly waning. "Well, thanks for the info, but I've gotta get ready for a mission."

"Yeah, Marshak said about that earlier, he said you were gonna be using Simurgh to get to Russia. You're gonna have one sweet ride there."

As soon as he mentioned taking the plane to Russia, Kat had a twisting sensation in her gut. Thanking the guy, she walked out of the hanger and towards the cafeteria, where she noticed a couple of the agents which were in the meeting were sitting, chatting and sharing snacks between them.

"What's up?" Kat asked, snagging the last unopened candy bar before Peter Hugins could get to it.

"Ryan, that was mine," Peter said with a glare. Kat just raised an eyebrow, unwrapped the candy bar, and took a bite. Adding insult to injury, as far as Peter was concerned, Kat dragged a nearby chair along the floor and placed her boot-clad feet on it.

"Just chatting about this mission," Travis said, beginning to collect the rubbish from the table. "Jake's having a hard time trying to compartmentalize with this, especially as it's his partner's family is in trouble. Doubly so considering the fact that she's his girlfriend too."

"Mmm," Kat said noncommittally, tossing the empty wrapper onto the table, where Travis instantly collected it and, along with all the other rubbish, dumped it in the bin while Peter walked over to a vending machine to get a drink.

"Leeds' coping with it, I don't see why Nez can't?" Matthew said, his British accent twanging slightly in Kat's ears, causing her to pause for a few seconds while her mind recalibrated itself. "He's been an agent here longer than she has; surely he's learned to not involve personal feelings in cases." Matthew looked behind him as Travis returned and sat back next to him.

"Rachel was a teenager when she arrived at N-Tek, eighteen years old, while Nez had already been working here for three years after being head-hunted from NASA, one of those years spent testing N-Tek's new space program. Rachel was definitely competent for a teenager, and I think part of her toughness scared Nez, making him wonder how he was going to cope with her. They started dating after eighteen months, and they're still together, almost four years later. Who says office romances don't work out?"

"Yes, thank you, Grange, I doubt we needed to know Leeds and Nez's N-Tek history in its entirety," Kat said, looking at the black woman out of the corner of her eyes. "I think a simple 'yes, he worked her for longer, but he worked at NASA which may have softened him up' would have been enough."

Elizabeth Grange said nothing more, just rolled her eyes and walked out of the cafeteria through the huge double doors.

"What's her problem?" Kat said, nabbing the coke can from Peter as he walked by, opening it and taking a large gulp before giving it back.

"That was mine."

"And you've still got it, haven't you? Not like I stole it."

With a quiet growl of annoyance, Peter sat back down at the table, making sure to choose a seat as far away from Kat as he could, then noticed an absence. "Where's Elizabeth gone?"

"Someone," Travis said with a sly glance at Kat, "irritated her and so she left. No idea where she's gone." Peter muttered something before collecting his stuff and walking out of the cafeteria too.

"Two down," Kat muttered mostly to herself, and Travis just sighed. "What?"

"You don't exactly like being around people, do you?"

"So?"

"So…I'm your partner. Of all the people you can trust, surely it's me? Seriously, I know you've only been here a few months, but can't you just let me act as your partner? Mairot's considering breaking us up and assigning new partners to each other, and I doubt you'd want to be dealing with a new partner after just a few months."

"Regardless of how you feel, I'm not gonna make your life any easier, and I sure as hell won't make my next partner's life easier, either. If making both of your lives into a living hell with me are what'll allow me to not have a partner, then I'll keep on doing such a thing." Kat stood up, giving one final glare at Travis before she too walked out of the cafeteria.

"Sometimes, I'm glad I can tune her out," Matthew said, and Travis just sighed in despair.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat was halfway to the hanger when she stopped, realizing that she didn't actually know where she wanted to go, and that returning to the hanger after half an hour would have raised some eyebrows: no one hung around the hanger than much unless they were tech.

So, instead, she turned left down the next corridor, winding her way through the meandering back-alley corridors that N-Tek was littered with, and quickly found the training area. It was nothing more than a glorified gym, really, with no equipment there that you couldn't find in a regular gym. Still, it was free for employees to use – at least, the agent employees – and was much, much less crowded than a regular gym would be.

Standing near the door, Kat looked around and felt a bit foolish: she'd come in for a mission briefing, and thus had nothing apart from what she was wearing: she'd moved into an apartment a few weeks ago and thus all of her usual N-Tek apparel was safely hidden a few miles away.

Scott Diamon nodded at Kat as he walked past her, having gone through a thorough work-out due to both the sweat-stains on his clothes and the odor that was now lingering in the air. Wrinkling her nose, Kat leaned back against the wall, casting an experienced eye over everyone else, growing bored after just a few minutes.

Counting to ten, and checking her watch to give the impression that she was supposed to meet up with someone, Kat turned and headed out of the gym, running into Rachel for the second time that day.

Rachel, like Diamon before her, simply nodded at Kat and walked into the gym, Kat being able to see Rachel dump her bag on the ground before the door swung shut.

"Seems to be taking the kidnapping of her family pretty well," Kat muttered to herself. Looking at her watch properly, she sighed when she saw the time: not even one in the afternoon, and they weren't due to fly out until seven.

Sighing to herself, and realising that it would take her out past Josh again, she decided that the next few hours would be better spent at home, out shopping, or really anywhere but N-Tek.

ooooooooooooooo

"What's going on? Am I late?" Kat asked, utterly bemused as she entered N-Tek five hours later to see pretty much everyone running around like a headless chicken. The only calm people she could recognize were Rachel, Nez and Smith.

"Vostok sent another email to MI-6 half an hour ago, detailing the torture and death of one of his hostages as he says he was not responded to in a timely fashion," Nez said, his eyes briefly looking at Rachel before he continued. "Included with the email were photos which appeared to depict the torture and death. The methods used are consistent with those described in the email, although the face was obscured in all images. The approximate height, build and apparent age are a match to Julie Leeds."

"Nez, this can't wait any longer. Now that Ryan is here," Rachel said, casting an evil look at Kat, "we can begin–"

"There is no 'we' in this mission, Leeds," Smith interrupted, and Rachel flinched. "It was made perfectly clear in the mission briefing earlier that you are emotionally too close for you to be able to have an objective view on this mission. You are to go home where you can relax and you will be informed of the mission when it is completed. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Rachel said, walking past Kat without even glancing at the younger agent. Rachel headed down the nearest flight of stairs, evidently heading towards the underground parking lot reserved for N-Tek agents.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat had to admit, Simurgh was more comfortable than she expected. The rooms, although small, kept on turning up more and more storage space the more she looked. Upon an initial inspection she only saw a wardrobe and a few shelves and then found a heck of a lot more when she started investigating.

The wardrobe split in half which, while didn't offer more storage space, offered easier access to items at the back. The shelves were hinged and when folded out fully, were twice their initial size. Underneath the bed were two hinged lids, offering yet more storage space.

"What do they expect us to be taking on some of these missions, " Kat muttered to herself, looking up as the door to her room slid open. Travis stood on the other side of the door, looking at Kat with an expression of surprise and confusion on his face.

Well, she _was _holding the mattress up with one hand, her other holding her weight on the floor and her backside well and truly sticking up in the air.

"Um…Marshak's asked all passengers to strap themselves in for take-off, as a precaution," he said after a few seconds. "And what are you doing?" he added as Kat dropped the mattress with a firm _thump_ back onto the bed.

"Investigating the layout," Kat replied. Deciding not to press the issue further, Travis led Kat to the seating area, both sitting down and strapping themselves in, and Kat looking out of the window she had chosen to sit next to.

Nez walked by the room, casting an eye over the occupants, before satisfying himself that everyone was there and walked ahead into the cockpit, his voice being broadcast through the tannoy system a few moments later.

"All right, looks like everyone's here. Take-off will commence in approximately ten minutes once we've completed the check-tests. Estimated flight time is just over thirteen and a half hours, plus a refuel in Churchill: hope you're good at sleeping on planes. We'll be reaching cruising altitude at thirty minutes after take-off, and will be descending half an hour before we're due to land. I'd like to ask all of you to remain seated during these times, especially if you don't want to be scraped off the ceiling if something goes wrong."

The engines roared to life almost as soon as Nez finished speaking, then quietened down to a low hum. A mechanical whirring followed, and Kat glanced at the wings to see the flaps extending downwards in preparation for the upcoming flight.

The aircraft slowly turned around, mainly due to the rotating platform it was parked on, trundling out of the open hanger doors and out into the sunshine once it was completely lined up.

"All right, your last warning. We're firing up the engines and heading to the run-way. Strap yourselves in now before it's too late."

Kat glanced around the room, counting the six agents who should have been there, all sitting in seats and strapped down for safety. She didn't imagine her first major mission to be occurring like this, and especially not when she still had a partner who refused to let go of her.

Still, a mission was a mission, and it was getting her away from that damned Josh McGrath for at least a few days.

She didn't have much time to contemplate that thought, though, as the engines roared to life once more as the throttle was pushed to maximum and the aircraft taxied down the runway, lifting into the air and heading towards Moscow, Russia.

They took off with one more agent than was assigned to the mission.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Almost as soon as they touched down in Churchill, everyone save Nez, Marshak and Matthew Park walked out to get some fresh air: Marshak and Nez because they were the two checking the plane over and getting it refilled, and Matthew because he'd fallen asleep an hour into the flight, leaving a nice drool puddle right next to his chair.

Kat would have joined everyone else huddling around the wheels of Simurgh, but only got three steps out the door before the piercing cold drove her back in.

Walking back into Simurgh, shivering slightly, Kat considered digging in to her suitcase to find some warmer clothes, but decided against it: the effort would be too much just to stand in a frozen wasteland. Instead, she bypassed the seating area -- where Matthew was still asleep -- and instead walked into her room, lying down on the mattress and staring at the ceiling above.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew was the tannoy announcing their imminent leave from Churchill and the fact that two agents were yet to be seated. The engines were already roaring, and how she'd slept through them firing up she had no idea.

Scrambling up, Kat rushed out of her room, spotting something in the corner of her eye which, when she turned to look, wasn't there any more. Giving it no more than a quick frown, Kat walked into the seating area, quickly followed by Peter Hugins. Both sat down and strapped themselves in. Seemingly nanoseconds after they'd strapped themselves in, the plane began to taxi down the runway, soaring into the air and leaving the North American continent.

ooooooooooooooo

"The temperature outside is a shade over forty-one Fahrenheit, with a cool Easterly breeze. The local time is nine-seventeen PM. Please remain seated until the plane has come to a complete halt. We hope you enjoyed flying with us today." A slight pause. "Y'know, I've always wanted to do that."

"Matthew, get out of the cockpit."

"Yes, sir," Matthew said with only a little bit of sarcasm before walking out and towards his quarters, the sound of the connection closing heard through the tannoy system.

"Exactly how old are you, Park?" Kat commented snidely as he walked past her open door, her tugging on a jacket and he pausing as she spoke. "'Cause I seriously think even an eight year old would understand the words 'do not go into the cockpit' and 'if you ignore the former, do not touch anything in the cockpit' more than you have."

Matthew said nothing, simply started walking again and wasn't seen by Kat for the rest of the day.

Muttering under her breath, Kat grabbed her bag and hoisted it onto her back, walking back through the corridors on Simurgh and walking out of the doors to get her first look at Sheremetyevo International Airport.

Needless to say, it didn't impress all that much. Despite being one of the warmer months in Russia, the building looked as drab as it would have done in the middle of winter. Kat walked down the steps placed at the door of the airplane, and converged with the rest of the agents, minus Matthew, at the bottom.

"You seen Park?" Grange asked Kat once she was within earshot.

"Yeah," Kat replied, dumping her bag on the ground with a heavy _whump_. "He's still back in the plane, grabbing his stuff. I reckon he'll be a while."

Nez said nothing for a few moments, just simply sighing, before sending the agents off to go through immigration, while saying that he and Matthew would catch up to them later.

ooooooooooooooo

Nez and Park found them, half an hour later, in one of the small coffee houses in the terminal, a batch of empty coffee cups in front of them along with a few packets of cookies and candy.

"After a while, you really forget how expensive all this stuff is," Peter muttered, half to himself and half to the other agents as Nez sat down. Michael, instead, went straight to order a cup of tea, and near-shrieked when he saw how expensive it was. "See what I mean?" Peter added as Michael came back empty-handed.

"Tell me they're joking, please," Michael said in desperation. "Three dollars for a thimble-sized cup of tea? Even Starbucks isn't that expensive."

"Economy's probably been screwed up with the new coinage system," Travis Murtaugh added, draining off the last of his coffee before looking at everyone else. "Whereabouts are we heading?"

"Sheremet'yevskiy, it's only a few kilometres east of here and it's where they've set up shop. Once we've gotten the basic details, we'll be going deeper into the heart of Moscow, seeing if we can find any information," Nez informed, and Kat snorted in derision.

"With the number of agents they've put out already, and the only information they've got coming from the kidnappers themselves? I seriously doubt we'll uncover anything useful." As Kat spoke, she finished off her coffee and caught a glimpse of a figure.

The person stopped at the junction and looked around, dark hair falling every which-way and even darker glasses obscuring their eyes from view. His -- or her -- clothes were baggy and androgynous enough in style to leave the sex indistinguishable. Kat and the other person locked eyes for a few seconds, before the latter turned their back on Kat and began walking away from the group.

A sharp poke in the ribs bought her attention back to the table, where she sensed they'd been talking to her for at least a couple of minutes with no response.

"Sorry, what?" she asked, causing near-everyone to sigh.

"I was commenting on the fact that your cars are now ready to go, all you need to do is pick them up from the rental zone," Nez said.

"Great, so, what're we waiting here for?"

"You," Peter snidely commented to Kat.

ooooooooooooooo

"We've managed to trace down Vostok to being somewhere in the vicinity of Moscow city. The Leeds family may or may not be in this area too but, for the moment, we will just be focusing on finding Vostok.

"As you know, James Leeds is one of our agents and, as such, this kidnapping is being treated as high priority by our higher-ups in Vauxhall Cross. The addition of a minor makes this doubly so."

Kat shuffled in her seat, wincing when it started squeaking. The briefing had already lasted the better half of twenty minutes and was covering nothing that they hadn't covered back in N-Tek.

After another shuffle, and another squeak, the doors opened and someone walked in, apologizing for being late and sitting down, where she was instantly pounced upon by the security guards.

"Proof of identification?"

"Alex Woodby, MI-5," she said, the rustling indicating she was going through a bag of some sorts to find something to show the guards. Evidently satisfied that it was authentic, they backed off and Kat returned her attention to the MI-6 officer at the front of the room.

"--hostage situation is likely to turn into chaos with false information and/or hurried details. With the recent information sent, which you should all be familiar with, I would hope no one _is_ tempted to head into this situation unprepared.

"All the agents currently in this room will be assigned to the North-East sector of the city. Red Square is open access to all agents, and all agents are informed to make good use of the local facilities, as we do not know where Vostok and his underlings will appear, or even if they will attempt as normal a life as they can. Thus, we ask that all agents be alert at all times."

"What, even when we're asleep?" Kat wanted to quip, but help her tongue knowing that the comment would cause more trouble for her than she really wanted, and she didn't want to screw it up. Doubly so for it being her first non-US mission.

As the agents were dismissed and told where they would be staying and with whom, the MI-5 agent who'd come in late managed to get within talking distance of Kat. The two agents acknowledged each other's presence with a simple nod yet, when Alex's name was called, the way she strode forwards set alarm bells ringing in Kat's mind.

Once Kat had been given her own accommodation -- unfortunately with Elizabeth Grange -- she saw that it was only a couple of blocks away from where Alex was staying, and Kat sidled up to her, in an attempt to be friendly.

"I'm Kat Ryan, N-Tek," Kat said, extending her hand for Alex to shake.

"Alex Woodby, I'm sure you heard my entrance," the rousse woman said, a slight tinge of embarrassment in her voice. Her glasses began to slide down her nose and she pushed them back with more than a hint of annoyance.

"Ever considered contacts?" Kat quipped when she saw the look of annoyance on the other woman's face, thinking that she'd stepped over the line until the woman smiled.

"Contacts are not my forte, I'm afraid, too much irritation and hassle for me. Glasses are much easier to deal with."

Someone called Alex's name and she started slightly, picking up her bag and saying good-bye to Kat before walking out of the house and into one of the waiting cars. Elizabeth walked up beside Kat, commenting on something which the latter didn't hear.

She'd just figured out why Alex's stride seemed so familiar.

ooooooooooooooo

After settling in and getting used to the surroundings, all the agents from N-Tek were given free reign on the city, and Kat found herself within the confines of Moscow Zoo, having followed a certain agent there on foot.

Kat had lost sight of Alex once she had walked through the entrance, and harbored the suspicion that she'd walked through the entrance and ducked out again to wander around the city, leaving Kat looking around the zoo aimlessly.

Muttering to herself, Kat read the leaflet/map guide she'd picked up with her ticket, trying to decipher the Cyrillic lettering and failing miserably. Thankfully, for those like Kat who didn't understand much other than English, the map offered silhouettes of animals, although it wasn't too helpful when it came to similar-looking animals.

"I give up," Kat finally said, finding herself at the sloth enclosure a few minutes later after trying to find what looked like a bear. Crumpling the map up, she tossed it over her shoulder where it entered the bin, no rim.

"Nice shot," Alex commented, coming to stand next to Kat with a drink in her hand. Taking a sip, she leaned on the wooden post and watched the sloth with interest.

"Used to play center field in high school," Kat said by way of explanation, still looking at Alex. "How come you got here late? I mean, Britain is a heck of a lot closer to here than the US is, yet you came in on N-Tek's briefing."

"Oh, I was unable to get to MI-5 in time when the message came through so I endeavoured to get here as soon as I possibly could, which just happened to coincide with your company's briefing."

_Nice try._ "You're MI-5, right?"

"Yes, is there a problem?"  
"Not really, just that isn't it MI-6 who deals with international threats to Britain, and MI-5 deals with national? Shouldn't you be back in London scouring the streets for the Leeds family, just in case?"

"I'm one of MI-5's top agents," Alex said, a hint of nervousness in her voice. She turned around and tossed the empty drinks cup into the bin. Unlike Kat's attempt, hers bounced along the rim a few times before dropping in. "In a situation like this, they believed that I would be better suited going to Russia and being closer to the action than I would back in the UK."

"In other words, you stowed away in an attempt to get here." Alex looked surprised. "Oh, don't look at me that way, anyone could tell that you were lying, Alex Woodby." Kat smirked at the woman who stood next to her. "Or should I say Rachel Leeds?"

The pleasant, soft-spoken image of Alex was gone in a flash, replaced by the strong back and cold eyes of Rachel. Despite having red hair and muddy green-brown eyes -- Rachel had slipped off her glasses when Kat had guessed her identity correctly -- Rachel was still Rachel, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

"You've never gone undercover, have you?" Kat asked, and Rachel looked taken-aback. "You changed your appearance and your accent, yet you kept all of your little ticks and quirks, the way you jog your legs when you cross them, or the way you walk. Simple things which you'd never notice, but when you put them together, they all add up to tell me that this person in front of me isn't Alex, it's Rachel.

"Now, what are you doing here?" Kat asked, leaning against the short wooden fence.

"Did you really expect me to sit back in Del Oro, doing nothing while you get sent to Russia, gallivanting about the place with agents from all over, joining in the search for my parents and my sister while I sit at home doing nothing, fearing a call from Smith telling me that they've been found dead.

"Don't you even care? Can you not imagine yourself sitting at home with nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs, waiting for a phone call that might never come? A phone call which would tell you your family's been massacred by a terrorist.

"You've seen those pictures of Julie; you can't tell me that, even if they're not real, you want that to happen to her? She's seventeen; no seventeen year old should have to go through that. You can't tell me you wouldn't care about your family being tortured and murdered, can you?"

Kat, who had been looking at Rachel in a calm fashion, half-seeming to have switched off. She pushed herself upright, no longer needing the fence for support and sighed.

"Would I care if my family was going to be murdered? No, I wouldn't."

"Why?"

"For the good reason that they're dead," Kat half-spat, and Rachel stepped back in shock. "They're dead, everyone I knew died when I was fifteen. I was taken into care and then tossed out on my ass when I turned eighteen. Know what else happened when I was eighteen? I got my juvenile records sealed and applied for a job at N-Tek, and here I am, a few months later."

Rachel tried to compose herself for a few moments, and failed when she asked the next question. "Is anyone going to be informed of this?" Despite her best attempts, the quiver was all-too visible in her voice and Kat inwardly smirked.

"No one will be contacted if you get your clothes, get on a plane headed for Del Oro and go back home. You're not wanted here and you're not needed here. We've got plenty of agents who can do just as good a job as you, perhaps even better now that you're emotionally involved."

"Ryan, I am your senior agent at N-Tek, and I will not be intimidated by an agent who has been at the company for a few months," Rachel said, her anger beginning to work its way up to boiling point, and Kat smirked a second time, this time visible to Rachel.

"That's the Rachel I know. I can go back to the house and get Smith on a secure line. I can give the authorities your real name, appearance, quirks and a multitude of other bits of information that will get you caught before the sun rises in the morning. You can either go quietly or I can have you dragged back to Del Oro and placed in a safe house which would be guarded twenty-four hours a day where you _will_ be waiting by the phone for news on your parents.

"You'll be in the same situation either way; just one option will allow you to go into town."

Rachel looked furious, angry at the fact that Kat had the audacity to demand something like this, before her shoulders slumped and she agreed to gather her items and leave on the next flight to Del Oro.

ooooooooooooooo

"Grange, can you dial the volume down? I can't concentrate over here."

"Yeesh, a little touchy tonight, aren't we?" Elizabeth commented, but obliged, turning the volume down and looking at Kat over the pile of Chinese boxes which, half an hour ago, had contained their late-night dinner. "What're you doing there, anyway?"

"Research," Kat muttered, glancing up at Elizabeth for a second before turning her attention back to the monitor in front of her.

Through a combination of website checking and phoning the airports, Kat had found the times for the next flight to Del Oro and where it departed from, and was now scanning the security tapes in and around the airport. She'd been looking almost since she'd arrived back at the house, and had yet to find anyone remotely Rachel-looking anywhere inside the airport, let alone queuing to board the flight.

Growling in frustration, Kat pulled off her headphones and grabbed the nearby phone, punching in the all-too-familiar N-Tek number.

"Hello, Jefferson's Smith office."

"I need to talk to Jefferson Smith immediately, it's an emergency." The secretary patched Kat through, and after a few seconds' pause was speaking directly to Jeff. "Mr. Smith, it's Katherine Ryan. We have a situation in Moscow…."

ooooooooooooooo

A few hours later, after being apprehended, Rachel was led to a plane headed for Del Oro and was under severe surveillance until news of the kidnapping being a success or failure came through.

One of the agents from MI-6 was the one to successfully find the Leeds family although, during his success, Vostok managed to escape from Russian security -- no doubt by slipping them a few thousand rubules each -- leaving only a few low-level rookie guards for the security services to capture, clean up after and interrogate.

Typically, being low-level operatives, they knew nothing much other than the fact that the Leeds family were well-connected and it was a simple money-gathering kidnapping.

Rachel was called almost as soon as the news filtered through after ensuring that James, Amanda and Julie were who they said they were, and Rachel was one of the first people to be waiting at the gate for their arrival.

Julie had rushed over to hug her elder sister, while her parents were more reserved and walked over, asking Rachel how she'd coped. Their kidnapping, it turned out, had involved being prisoners in one of the poshest and most expensive hotels on the west side of Russia: their kidnappers had no wanted to damage their hostages before any money had changed hands.

Still, Kat never entirely trusted Rachel and her motives after that.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

"Tell me once more why we're back here."

"Because something's not adding up. Kat's been silent since she escaped from here, she didn't even bother telling us what happened; instead, she went straight to Dad, and now she's on a forced vacation."

"What makes you think it's forced?"

Josh shot a look at Berto. "When was the last time you knew Kat voluntarily took time off work?"

"Well, there was...no, that was when she'd broken her leg and hobbled around for a couple of days before admitting it hurt."

"Exactly. The only times she's been off work is when she's been injured, or she's been forced to take the time off. Thus, this little 'vacation' she's taking is on Dad's insistence."

Inside the warehouse it was pitch-black, and both Josh and Berto switched on the flashlights they'd brought with them. Leaving Berto near the doors, Josh walked into the heart of the building, the beam scattering everywhere as he scanned the area quickly, finding nothing which immediately jumped out at him.

"Josh, we're not going to find anything here," Berto said exasperatedly as Josh lifted up an old cardboard box, stepping back as half of it tore off and splattered onto the concrete. "N-Tek's agents have already combed this place twice, what makes you think you're going to find something they won't?"

"None of them had infra-red vision," Josh said, holding up a cell phone. "Definitely belongs to one of the kidnappers, no way a cell battery would last over three years." Berto walked behind Josh and peered over his shoulder as the latter scrolled through the phone, trying to find something of interest.

"Here we are, text message sent to itself, four days ago," Josh said, checking his watch. "Two days before Kat was kidnapped." Josh read the message to himself, frowning in confusion. "Here, bro, tell me what you think of this," he added, handing the phone to Berto.

"What I think is pretty much what it's telling us to do: go visit Seoul."

ooooooooooooooo

Seoul, capital city of South Korea, with a population of over ten million squeezed into just over six hundred square kilometres made it one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet. Roughly bisected by the Han river and surrounded by eight mountains, Seoul seemed to be a city placed in the middle of countryside.

Of course, arriving there at three in the morning wasn't the best way for Josh to enjoy the sights.

When he was able to enjoy the sights of Seoul, it was almost twelve hours after he'd arrived, and was waiting in the middle of the COEX Mall for the someone he wasn't sure he'd want to meet.

No, scratch that "wasn't sure" and make it into "would never, ever have agreed to travel here if it wasn't to find out what had Kat so spooked".

Thus, he was standing in the middle of the COEX Mall, surrounded by Korean teenagers yelling to each other, diving in and out of the varying shops, stopping by the arcade, meeting another group of friends in front of the sixteen-screen cinema, or even being 'educational' and stopping by the aquarium.

And, after ten minutes of waiting, Josh's contact turned up.

Being of Caucasian descent, he stood out amongst the group of Koreans, and being at least twice their age was also a helping factor.

Another was that the person casually striding towards Josh was extremely well-recognized, at least in his line of work.

"Mairot!" Berto hissed over the Bio-link, half a world away from Josh in Korea. "How'd he manage to survive?"

"Dread managed it," Josh muttered under his breath. "What's to say Mairot managed it, too?"

"_Todavía__ digo que él hizo un acuerdo con el Diablo_," Berto said, and Josh smirked after a couple of moments, understanding enough to get the gist of what had just been spoken.

"Your father always liked South Korea, but for reasons I cannot imagine, especially considering the country didn't reach political stability until two years after he died."

"Love the country, hate the politics," Josh said with a small twitch of his lips, and Mairot nodded.

"Perhaps. Seeing as you made it here am I to assume that you found the message I left for you back in Del Oro? How is Rachel, by the way?"

"Yeah, found your message after N-Tek had already scoured the place. I almost didn't find it, you definitely hid it well."

Mairot smiled, "Well, I had to be certain it would only be found by the person I wanted, and not someone who'd only been working there for two weeks with no knowledge of who I am." Mairot dug around in his pockets, bringing out a small, folded piece of paper which he handed over to Josh.

"I would advise you to open that both away from other agents," Mairot said as Josh moved to open the paper, and the latter frowned instead. "You can choose to ignore what's written on the paper and go back to Del Oro, I won't judge you for that. Be aware that if you do read and accept what I've just given you, you will be outside of the jurisdiction of N-Tek. While it will give you free reign over what to do, you won't have a team to back you up at any time, and you will truly be on your own.

"I am telling this to Max Steel." Josh's frown deepened, but Berto appeared to have got the message.

"He means me, _hermano_. If you accept, I can't be behind the monitor keeping track of you."

Josh looked Mairot in the eyes, anger mixing with confusion, yet Mairot's expression didn't change.

"I leave the decision entirely up to you," Mairot said, walking away and blending seamlessly into the crowds.

ooooooooooooooo

Rachel took two steps into a connecting road, and then instantly back-tracked, muttering curses under her breath. She'd spotted the familiar N-Tek uniform, glaringly bright in the São Paulo sunshine, and recognized that before the agent who was wearing it: Kurt Dorais. He'd entered into N-Tek's system a few months before she left, and had shown exceptional skill in his training, emerging as one of the best agents in his group.

He also excelled in tracking.

Letting another stream of curses go, including some in French -- not surprisingly, about the only French she could remember from her five years of study -- and meticulously retraced her steps back to her hotel.

Her hair dye had only been temporary, and she set to work washing and re-washing her hair in a vain attempt to remove the dye, or at least tone it down so much that it wouldn't register as dark brown.

Once accomplished, she hurriedly packed all of her clothes, notes and miscellaneous equipment which had been placed all over her hotel room, struggled down to the lobby with it, and engaged in a furious conversation with the man at the check-in desk.

"_I'm sorry, you've missed your check-out time by three hours. You'll have to try again tomorrow._"

"_I_ can't_ wait until tomorrow. I have a flight booked which leaves in five hours' time, and I cannot miss it. I need to get home, and I need to check-out now!_"

The man didn't respond immediately, instead concentrating on the computer in front of him, typing in the agonizingly slow hunt-and-peck method. After a full five minutes, he looked back up at Rachel, with a look of hope on his face.

"_There is one solution. I can 'officially' check you out tomorrow, but you will be charged another day's accommodation._"

"_Yes, fine, do that._" Rachel snapped, waiting as her credit card details were processed, signing the piece of paper presented to her with a flourish. Finding some privacy in the lobby, she called up for a taxi and stood there, anticipating its arrival.

_Only...what do I do now?_ she thought to herself: her last orders had been to wait in São Paulo until further notice, and she was flouting that spectacularly.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, she speed-dialed the number she had called a mere few hours ago and visibly cringed when she heard it ringing, wondering what kind of conversation would be had.

"I'm praying this is good news," her father growled on the opposite end of the phone, and Rachel felt her stomach lurch.

"I have at least one N-Tek agent trailing me, more likely at least two. I nearly ran in to one of them about half an hour ago."

"Who did you see?"

"Kurt Dorais, he joined N-Tek approximately eighteen months ago, so the likelihood that he's a mole is very slim."

"You'd better get back here as soon as you can," James said -- was there a slight note of worry in his voice? -- before continuing. "With N-Tek most likely watching you, you can't be seen to be taking orders from another organization. Come back home, wait for the emergency to be over, and we'll progress from there."

"Understood. I'll need to request a --"

Rachel never finished her sentence: someone had hit her from behind, knocking her to the ground, and all she saw was a blurred shape with red hair looking down on her before she slipped into unconsciousness.

ooooooooooooooo

Josh returned to his hotel room, which he had booked for three nights, expecting to be given more information than just what would be written on a single piece of paper. Berto had been silent since Mairot had walked off, and that made Josh more nervous than the idea of going rogue.

Taking the piece of paper out of his pocket, Josh idly turned it around in his fingers, staring off at the wall while lost in his thoughts. While wondering if he should turn his back on N-Tek was occupying a fair portion of his mind, the majority was taken over by trying to think of any ulterior motive Mairot could have for giving him all of this information, seemingly with no catch or fine print.

"So what are you going to do?" Berto said after a few minutes, starting Josh. In the silence, he'd almost forgotten than he was there, which again reminded him of the dilemma now facing him.

"I can cover for you, say you're on vacation and need some time to yourself," Berto offered, but Josh shook his head.

"The only thing you could say which would make sense is that I've done a Rachel and disappeared." Josh sighed. "This is the one problem when your dad is also your boss."

"Does that mean you're coming back to Del Oro?"

"Until I can decide what to do."

ooooooooooooooo

Jefferson rewound the message on his answering machine and listened to it again, wondering why he was contacting him after so much time, and it wasn't exactly like they didn't have any other communication lines to use.

Pause.

Rewind.

"-_South Korea__, he may not be returning for a while-_"

The person hadn't said who "he" was, but Smith had a good idea. Neither was the reason _why_ Josh was in South Korea said, but the tone of voice had more than a hint of "trust me, I know what I'm doing" to it, and who was Smith to argue?

He was, to put it bluntly, a very worried parent.

With Rachel having gone AWOL, half of her team in Europe had been assigned the task of finding her, and Smith had personally sent three of his own agents to São Paulo to assist under the recommendation of Kat.

With Josh now in South Korea, and potentially disappearing too, the number of agents being sent to deal with actual terrorists, and not runaway agents, was slowly being whittled down. If he was going to be perfectly honest to himself, he would have said he saw all of this coming when he was first contacted, but instead chose to ignore him.

Naturally, he was now paying the price for it.

Picking up the receiver, he dialed a number which was all-too familiar and left a short message on their answering machine.

ooooooooooooooo

Strangely enough, Kat mused, the local sports park was devoid of people, even thought the sun was brilliantly bright and the temperature was in the low seventies. There were barely any cars parked outside, and no coaches -- surprising, because there was almost always at least one parked there -- and only a scattering of bicycles leaned up against the outer wall, most of them in front of "no bicycles to be left here" signs.

Kat stepped through the doors and up to the registers, handing the man there her membership card before he could ask for it, and he quickly scanned it through the system. Finding everything in order, he handed back Kat's card along with a receipt, and pointed her in the direction of the women's locker rooms.

_Always one good thing about an empty skate park,_ Kat mused as she picked a locker as far away from the main doors as possible, _no fighting for locker space._ She never saw the reason behind providing a ton of space for people, and then limiting locker space to about a hundred each sex.

Changing into more sports-appropriate gear, Kat pulled her skateboard out of her bag before dumping the latter into the locker, slamming the door shut and walking around to the actual entrance to the park.

Pretty much anyone who lived in and around Del Oro, or was an extreme sports fan, would be able to identify the area: it had been the setting for all DOX events since it was built in 1996, and wasn't a half-bad sports park in its own right.

Right in front of the building housing the front desk and locker rooms was a group of half-pipes, on which a couple of teenagers were practicing, obviously needing it from the number of times they wiped out and had to start all over again.

To the left was a small motocross area, the seating which would normally have been present at official competitions instead being stored in the warehouse a few hundred meters behind. One person was beside the tracks, their bike in pieces around them and oil splattered all over the place, including the vehicle owner.

The right of Kat held a more 'mellow' area, the general skate park area containing the typical ramps and grinding rails over two levels, a short flight of stairs connecting the two (and offering a couple more 'realistic' rails to grind on). Set back from the area, and sitting between the half-pipes and skating area was the foot court, the only place which was completely empty.

Weighing up her options between the half-pipe, food court and skate area, Kat chose the latter of the three options, putting her helmet on and ensuring it was secure before attempting anything.

A couple of circuits wasn't enough to alleviate her boredom: instead, it seemed to enhance it as when she stopped for a break, she began to think of other things to do, and came up blank.

Instead, she pushed herself around for another circuit, almost running over her own foot when she was someone walk through the entrance to the park. Slowing down, she kept an eye on him as he headed straight for the skate area, not even bothering to talk to the teenagers on the half-pipe, nor the person whom Kat assumed was still busy trying to repair their bike.

Kat averted her gaze slightly when her eyes met his, momentarily forgetting that he was blind, and pretended to be focused on the expanse of blue sky behind him, and sped up, pulling off a couple of minor tricks. She ignored him as he approached, instead pushing herself to go faster, tricks getting more and more complex as he grew closer.

Zooming past him, she aimed for the handrail connected to the stairs leading down to the lower level, jumping on to it and grinding down. Nearing the end, she launched off and did a three-sixty degree spin in mid-air, aiming to land on her wheels and skate off.

Instead, she found herself sucking gravel.

The corner of her skateboard had hit the ground first, forcing a brake on Kat's movements and sending her sliding across the ground.

Picking herself up, Kat grimaced as she spotted a new graze running up most of the length of her forearm, and mentally growled when she heard footsteps approaching.

"What are you doing here, Leigh?" Kat hissed loud enough for him to hear, and she heard him stop, his cane sounding like an odd third leg and it hit the gravel.

"The last information I gave you was from a friend, he needs your help again."

"I am not allowing you to call in another favor for me, Leigh. The last one got me kidnapped and tortured," she spat, picking up her skateboard and brushing past him. His arm reached out, grabbing her hand in his and preventing her from walking any further.

"Pretty good aim for someone who's blind," Kat sneered, looking back at Leigh in time to see him smile.

"Pure accident. I was aiming for your arm in general. Listen, I don't know why he's telling you all of this, or why he needs me to act as his middle-man, but surely you can trust him?"

Kat snorted. _Yeah...I can trust him like I can trust a snake in the grass not to bite me._

Placing a sheaf of paper in her hand he was currently holding, he removed his own hand and stepped back.

"Call me when you get back this time, okay? It'll be nice to hang out with an old friend for once."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Credit goes to my mum for answering my weird questions (such as what Heathrow terminal a plane from LA would land at, and if you could sit on the steps of Saint Paul's Cathedral), hotels dot com and Wikipedia.

Chapter Nine:

Rachel woke up with a blinding headache, not that uncommon for someone who had been whacked in the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object. She tried to move one of her arms, but only succeeded in moving it a centimetre when it stopped, the rattle of metal accompanying her movement.

She shook her head and opened her eyes -- the latter of which she hadn't done due to being in a half-conscious state -- and found herself chained to a cot and locked in a small gray cell, solid on three sides with the fourth being floor to ceiling bars.

A lone guard stood outside of the cell door, lightly holding a shock-stick and with a very familiar insignia on the back of his t-shirt. She leaned up as best as she could, finding another restraint around her waist, trying to get her eyes to focus correctly.

It took a few more head-shakes for Rachel to recall what it was: N-Tek's logo.

Groaning to herself -- which only made her headache worse -- she slumped back down on the bed, the noise and movement attracting the attention of the guard.

"We're flying over California," Kurt said, turning his head around to look at her. "I never would have guessed you'd be one to go rogue. Ryan, perhaps, but not you. Top agent, youngest mission co-ordinator N-Tek's ever seen...what, did they offer you a better dental plan?" Kurt grinned predatorily.

Rachel said nothing, turning her head to look at the blank wall to her left, leaving Kurt to knock question after question at her.

"You're making a mistake," Rachel finally said, almost being drowned out by the pilot's request for everyone to secure themselves for landing. Kurt pulled a key out of his pocket, unlocked the cell door and replaced it, stepping inside the cell with the grin still on his face.

"And what mistake would that be?" Kurt asked, checking the cuffs on Rachel's hands and feet before checking her arm, waist and thigh restraints. "We can't exactly let a wanted terrorist go free now, can we?"

"Wanted terr--?!" Rachel half-yelled, straining at her restraints. "You don't know anything about this situation, nothing at all. You've got no right to wildly throw around insults and accusations."

"Haven't I? I'm not the one who went AWOL on N-Tek, am I?" Kurt said, walking out of the cell, locking the door and buckling himself into the nearest seat.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat rushed into her apartment, glad that the forensic experts had finally gone, and hurriedly checked for bugs. Finding none in the immediate vicinity of her living room, she sat down on the sofa and pulled out the piece of paper Leigh had given her. Common sense dictating that she should ignore it, shred it and put it in the bin, yet curiosity won over, and she unfolded the paper to see two numbers and Mairot's name.

Walking over to the computer, she booted it up and, when was able to, inputted the two numbers. Finding nothing but gibberish on the first page, she whittled down the search parameters and finally got something which looked semi-useful.

The two numbers Mairot had given here were the latitude and longitude of London, England. Either that, or somewhere smack-dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Kat scrunched up the piece of paper, finding a lighter in a drawer, and set fire to the paper, just like the message she had received from Smith. Tossing it in her bin, she kept an eye on it until it had extinguished, making sure it didn't catch anything else: the last thing she needed was her apartment burning down.

Taking all of three seconds to decide, Kat turned her attention back to her laptop and searched for the soonest, and cheapest, flight to London. On her last mission she was acting, however tangentially, under Smith's orders, giving her jurisdiction to take _Hawk_ out.

Kat was loathe to fill in Smith on this mission, as it would mean she had to admit that she was taking cues from Mairot and that she had no idea why she was trusting him enough to follow his orders.

Finding a flight scheduled for five AM the next day, Kat grabbed her bag, still half-packed from her last flight to São Paulo, and began stuffing into it clothes suited for a milder climate.

Once packed, she dumped her bag by the front door...and paused, lost in thought. Mairot had told her to go to London, yet hadn't specified exactly _where_. For all she knew, Mairot could mean for her to stay around Big Ben, or she could instead be needed near Hampton Court Palace.

Of course, if she got lucky, she'd run into someone she knew there and plot what she was meant to do there onwards.

Acting on impulse was something she did best.

ooooooooooooooo

Josh had been fiddling with the paper Mairot had given him almost all the entire flight back to Del Oro, running over in his mind whether he should trust that Mairot knew what he was doing, or sense the whole thing as a trap and refuse to leave.

He had been back at work, filling out a report on his latest 'mission', as the trip to Seoul was classed as N-Tek business, but hesitated when he started documenting the actual meeting between himself and Mairot. The note had been at the back of his mind, niggling away, and Josh eventually finished the report, omitting the part about the note.

"Report's done," Josh said to Nadia Cherabi, N-Tek's newest mission co-ordinator. She had been their third in just over a year: first there had been the whole furore over Mairot being a traitor, then Rachel being promoted...and then leaving for Eurasia, and finally Nadia was chosen as her replacement after a few months of Smith filling in the position.

"Smith wants to see you," Nadia said in a light French accent. Josh nodded, but made a mental note to suggest to Smith to ensure their next mission co-ordinator wasn't from Europe.

"When?" Josh asked as Nadia pulled his file towards her and began to scan it quickly.

"He said as soon as possible," Nadia added, looking up from where she was now opening a computer file. Josh spotted a couple of mission logs from other agents at N-Tek, all with varying date stamps on them, the oldest dating back to well over a month ago.

_Must be new,_ Josh thought as he excused himself to walk down the hallways to Smith's office. Anyone who'd been at N-Tek longer than a few months and had some mission experience under their belt knew that if their mission report was emailed to Nadia, it wasn't likely to be filed for weeks. She always managed to avoid seeing the blinking section on her screen which informed her of the number of emails she had.

Josh reached Smith's office, noting a very obvious lack of secretary presence, and checked his watch: five thirty-two, and even though everyone was only scheduled to work nine to five on non-mission days, Smith's secretary was almost always there for an extra couple of hours. She never complained, it got her overtime pay almost every day.

Josh knocked on the door a couple of times, getting what would be a muffled "come in," to any other human, and walked into his father's office.

"You wanted to see me?" Josh said as he let the door swing shut, taking a seat in front of Smith's desk.

Smith looked up, slightly distracted, and shoved the papers he'd been working on to the side of the desk. Josh caught a brief glimpse of the title before Smith covered it up.

"I received word a few months ago that Rachel Leeds had gone AWOL, and thanks to agent surveillance, we had managed to pin her location down to São Paulo. Agents were sent to apprehend her, but she has once more slipped under N-Tek's radar," Smith said, catching the look of worry on his son's face, but refused to respond to it. "As you know, any agent's unauthorized absence is of great worry to N-Tek, and the subsequent disappearance of Rachel once we had located her is doubly so.

"Agents are being deployed all across the globe in a worldwide effort to locate and apprehend her. Single agents, undercover missions, which cannot and must not be told to anyone else: this includes Roberto Martinez," Smith added with a look aimed at Berto. Both Josh and Berto moved to disable the link between them, and Smith waited before continuing.

"Josh, you will be tasked to cover England, from the Midlands down, and Wales. If you encounter Rachel you are to apprehend her and bring her back to Del Oro using whatever means necessary, so long as she remains alive and functioning.

"Being a covert mission, you are allowed no ties to N-Tek, and as such you will be taking a regular flight to London, where you will meet up with MI-6 agents, who have also been tasked to finding Rachel. You will report only to them, and any mission documentations you write will be delivered directly to me and into my hands. Cherabi knows nothing of this mission, and the stakes are too high for her or another agent who doesn't know of this to find the documentation."

Smith pulled out a slim folder and a couple of plane tickets from one of his desk drawers, sliding it shut and locking it. He slid them across the desk, and Josh immediately opened the folder to find nothing more than a typed version of what Smith had been telling him.

"Your flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning at five AM. Good luck," Smith finished, and Josh took that as his cue to leave.

Smith watched his son leave, seeing the door swing back to nestle in the frame, and counted off the seconds until he was sure he was out of earshot of Josh. Picking up the files he'd brushed aside when Josh had arrived, he shoved them into the drawer he'd gotten Josh's mission information from and locked it once more.

He walked over to the doors of his office, switching out the lights and locking the door behind him and, instead of turning left towards the parking lot, he instead took a right, following the corridor through the 'back area' of the public N-Tek.

Reaching the elevators, he scanned in his fingerprints before being allowed to step into one, and pressed the button for the lowest level in the building.

5B, the cell holding area.

The elevator doors opening in front of him, he passed a couple of security guards, nodding to them as he passed but otherwise paying them no attention. Reaching the main doors of the cell holding area, Smith was forced to re-enter his fingerprints, along with a retinal scan and his N-Tek identification code, which also doubled as a voice key.

Thanks to Dragonelle, long gone were the days when a simple body scan was needed -- although security in the cells was much higher than any ordinary N-Tek building.

Walking through the doors, Smith typed in the prisoner identification number and was transported to the selected cell, coming face to face with the person he'd just sent Josh on a wild goose chase to find.

"I have to admit, you are training some good agents," Rachel said, and Smith smiled. _Always the diplomat._ "If you're looking for me to talk to you, to explain why I was acting against orders, I can't. When there's a conflict of interests, one decides which side to follow, and unfortunately N-Tek lost."

Smith deactivated the barriers around the cell and stepped in, Rachel only slightly narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Smith had bought no back-up, no weapons, and had walked into the cell of someone who, as Kurt had described, was a wanted terrorist.

"You were following your father's orders, James Leeds, who works at MI-6. He informed you that N-Tek had been infiltrated by moles, plural. You were going to both meet up on London to discuss how to discover the identities of said moles, yet were waylaid in São Paulo for reasons as yet unknown.

"I am on your side, Rachel," Smith said, and Rachel let slip her mask, allowing her a proper expression of confusion. "Mairot has already given Kat information telling her to travel to London. He gave the same information to Josh, but I intervened and sent him on a supposed convert mission to apprehend you."

"Then why am I sitting here instead of in London?"

Smith smiled ruefully. "I admit, I sent those orders out to capture you in São Paulo before Mairot had the chance to fully explain. He contacted me shortly after Kat was held hostage in one of the warehouses hear the port and told me to not worry, that he had everything under control. Now," he added, handing Rachel a small necklace. "I have no idea what the limits of this are, but it's an invisibility generator, which should allow you to slip past the guards. Your access details are still in the system, so all you need to do is ensure you're not captured again.

"I trust you will be meeting Josh and Kat in London."

ooooooooooooooo

Back at his beach house, Josh was just finishing off his packing for the mission when his eyes fell on the note Opening it up, he found a list of numbers followed by, obviously, Mairot's name. The numbers looked like latitude and longitude lines which he vaguely remembered from his old Geography lessons, but his mind wasn't geared up for thinking, and instead put the numbers into a search engine, trying to filter through some of the junk it was giving him.

Giving up, Josh instead focused his attention on London, trying to figure out what he was going to be doing on arrival. His eyes wandered over the page, before focusing on the paragraph which described the positioning of London on the world map, and found that the coordinates on the paper and on the website matched up exactly.

_Why would Dad be sending me to the same place Mairot is?_

In less than twenty-four hours, he had been given 'mission information', so to speak, from two different people telling him to go to the same place.

This felt like more than a coincidence to Josh.

ooooooooooooooo

Kat was never a good artist, but if one looked closely at her stick-figure drawings, they could just about see that the person being poked with needles, stuffed into a too-small box and dumped at the bottom of the ocean was the person sitting in front of her who had decided to recline his seat all the way back, bashing into her knees. She'd set up a routine of kicking the back of his chair every so often under the pretense of shifting her legs for comfort or to get something from her bag, but he was in such a deep slumber that he barely stirred when she did.

Poking him to wake him up did no good, either, and the flight attendant hadn't been able to wake him up and put his seat upright either. Instead, with the two seats next to her unused, Kat just put the armrests up and swung her legs onto the seat, continuing her sketches of torture.

Josh had mildly more luck: no one sitting in front or behind him, but he was squashed up against the window as an over-large woman was occupying the middle seat (and half of the aisle seat, too). She was either half-deaf or didn't understand English too well, as any question posed by the staff was met with a loud "WHAT?!" and a look of extreme confusion on her face.

About half-way into the flight she disappeared, leaving Josh with some breathing room, but also left him wondering where she'd gotten to, especially when she didn't return when the pilot announced they were beginning their descent into Heathrow.

ooooooooooooooo

Arriving at Heathrow Terminal Three, Josh rushed through baggage collection and passport control, and was well on his way to Central London before Kat had even picked up her own luggage -- largely due to the fact that, as she was one of the first people to board the plane, her luggage was the among the last to be put on the carousel.

Josh was already on the underground and half-way to Waterloo by the time Kat had found her bag -- incredibly scuffed, which she was extremely annoyed about, it being a new bag and all -- and was looking around in utter confusion with no idea where to go.  
She had never been to a different country outside of missions, not having any time and, as she realized standing in the middle of the corridor as people swarmed past, she had been so busy trying to book a flight that she had neglected to also find a hotel room for the duration of her stay.

Muttering curses to herself, she wandered around the airport terminal some more, finally finding the underground entrance and, after purchasing a ticket, was on the next train to Waterloo.

Maybe acting on impulse wasn't such a good idea after all.

ooooooooooooooo

A couple of hours later, involving a delayed trip to Waterloo, a frantic search for a cyber café and finding and locating a cheap hotel which had a room free, Kat was sitting outside of Saint Paul's Cathedral, the first place she had spotted to sit down where you weren't required to buy anything first and which wasn't already crowded with tourists like Trafalgar Square was.

Kat was only half-concentrating when a tall, blond figure walked into her field of vision: the person stopped, turned his head to look at Kat, and then began to walk towards her, an expression of confusion on his face which was quickly mirrored on hers when she saw who it was.

"What are you doing here?" both Kat and Josh asked each other at the same instant.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I had way too much fun with hotels in this chapter, and I know nothing about MI-6's inner workings, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Chapter Ten:

Yoshika, surprisingly, was the first person in the lab the next morning -- normally Berto was there before dawn broke, already running more tests on the MX probes -- but Yoshika found herself stranded in complete darkness, fumbling around for the light switch and eventually finding it.

She was a young, intelligent woman from Japan, who'd moved over to the United States after completing her college degree and accepting a job offer from a US-based firm. A few months ago she'd accepted a position at N-Tek, working under the afore-mentioned genius, Roberto Martinez.

N-Tek's lab was quite a multicultural affair, with scientists from Columbia, Belarus, Greece, New Zeland, Kenya, and Japan, to name a few. The end result was that there were at least six different languages able to be spoken at any day in the lab, and the other scientists had learnt rudimentary words in the other languages, mainly ones which implied that something had gone disastrously wrong with the experiments.

Yoshika rolled her eyes as she cleaned off the chip packets, cookie crumbs and fruit remains off of the nearest desk, placing a file down in place. Stretching her legs out in front of her, Yoshika kicked a plastic bag which, when removed and checked, was found to contain yet more snack food. Tossing the bag back underneath the desk, she concentrated on her file, not noticing when some of the other scientists filtered in.

Berto wandered in about an hour and a half after Yoshika, unusually unkempt in appearance and squinting at everything -- he'd apparently forgotten his glasses and was unable to locate the spare pair he kept at work for just such an occurrence. He unconsciously ran a hand through his hair, trying to flatten it down, but he looked no worse than he did after pulling an all-nighter in the lab.

Berto breezed past Yoshika, neither acknowledging the other, before sitting down at a desk and pulling the results of yesterday's tests towards him, checking that it matched up with previous tests.

"Your pocket's vibrating," Vadher said a couple of hours later as he walked past. Yoshika looked up at him, startled, then realized the pocket of her lab coat was vibrating: someone was calling her.

Glancing around, Yoshika walked out of the lab room, taking off her coat once she was outside and slipped her phone out of the pocket. Heading towards the stairwell furthest away from any corridors in common use, she checked the upper floor for people, found none, and sat on the steps before checking the screen.

The screen read _L.N.._, and Yoshika sighed: the only time Liisa contacted her was when there was real trouble brewing.

"What's up?"

"We intercepted Leeds in São Paulo; she's currently in N-Tek custody. McGrath has been sent to England under false information: he thinks he's looking for Rachel when we've already caught her. Neil's going to be tracking McGrath while I stay here and keep an eye on Ryan. Has anything happened with Martinez?"

"He turned up late for work today, but considering his untidy appearance, he probably just overslept."

"Still, keep an eye on him."

"I will."

ooooooooooooooo

Being well past eight in the afternoon, Kat's stomach did a Berto on her, and as a result they were both eating at the nearest nice-looking restaurant, which ended up being a Yo! Sushi bar just around the corner.

"Why are you here?" Josh branched the subject at 'dessert', poking at his chocolate brownie. "Dad sent me here, and said nothing about you being sent to the same place. The only agents I'm supposed to meet here are from MI-6."

Kat looked up, narrowing her eyes as she thought. _Why would Smith send Josh to the same place I am? He said he and Mairot were in contact..._

"Why did Smith send you here?"

Josh wasn't expecting that question. "Rachel's gone AWOL, apparently, and Dad's sending agents all across the globe to look for her."

Kat opened her mouth to say something, then quickly closed it and finished off her mochi. She _could_ have said that the last place she saw Rachel was in South America, but then that'd open up a slew of questions as to why she was there and why he hadn't been informed of her mission.

"Are you going to be meeting up with anyone other than MI-6 agents?" Kat said, signaling that they had finished eating and was rummaging around in her purse for some money. "Damn pound coins, why can't they make them into notes?" she muttered to herself.

"Not as far as I know," Josh replied as Kat tossed down a couple of notes, plus a handful of coins, and they both walked out of the restaurant. "So, what now?"

"Walk up to the MI-6 building and introduce yourself to them tomorrow morning. They'll be expecting you to turn up."

"What about you?"

"I've got some stuff of my own to clear up first," Kat said non-descriptively, heading towards Waterloo station.

"You never answered my earlier question: why are you here?"

"I got a call from one of my old friends to meet up. I'm still on vacation, so I accepted the offer, and we're going to meet up in a few days' time. It'll allow me to walk around London without getting lost when we do meet."

"Oh, right. Well, I assume I'll see you around the city then." Josh said, falling silent. "Where are you staying?"

"Central Park Hotel, over near Hyde Park. How about you?"

"The Mad Hatter Hotel, more or less right beside Waterloo station."

"Oh." It was Kat's turn to be at a loss for words, and they walked the rest of the way in silence, speaking only to say 'goodbye' to each other when they reached the station, Josh veering off towards his hotel while Kat got on the Bakerloo line towards Hyde Park Corner.

It was almost ten when she got to her hotel and wearily trudged up to her room, growling in annoyance when she saw the person standing in front of her door.

"What do you want _now_, Mairot?"

"Rachel is on her way here," Mairot said, not at all fazed by the less-than-polite greeting he received. "Unfortunately, so is one of the moles at N-Tek, tailing Josh. They will both be arriving here tomorrow morning at around seven -- you need to meet one and avoid the other, I assume you can tell what needs to be applied to each person," he said with a hint of a smile.

"When Rachel arrives and you and Josh have met with her --"

"Wait, Josh is in on this too, now?"

"Not as such: he doesn't know the real reason he's in this city. I would explain the situation to him, but considering what he was like in our previous meeting...I would rather I didn't explain it to him while he was jet-lagged and presumably confused as to why he was sent here."

"So, in other words, you want me to traipse back over to Waterloo, where I've just come from I might add, to explain to Josh that instead of arresting Rachel when he sees her tomorrow, he's got to co-operate? How well do you think I'm going to be able to manage that?"

"Extremely well, I would imagine," Mairot said, walking past Kat and down the hallway.

She watched him until he was out of sight.

ooooooooooooooo

Josh half-stumbled out of the bathroom, shaver still in his hand as he answered the frantic knocking at the door.

"If you're trying to grow a goatee, it doesn't suit you," Kat said as she breezed past him, not waiting for an invitation. She sat down on the bed and looked up at Josh, who was staring at her blankly.

"I thought you had a hotel room of your own."

"I was getting lonely there, so I checked out and decided to share your room. I'm sure your bed feels empty without me there beside you."

Josh nodded and headed back into the bathroom, getting half-way there before what Kat had said actually twigged. "Wait, what did you say?"

"I missed you, I believe you missed me, we're newlyweds so let's celebrate like newlyweds on honeymoon do."

"I...am going to pretend I didn't here that," Josh said, and walked back into the bathroom.

"Search your feelings, you know it to be true," Kat half-yelled.

Josh poked his head around the door. "That was a terrible impression."

"So?" Kat raised an eyebrow and walked over to the bathroom, standing behind Josh as he shaved. "Rachel's arriving here tomorrow morning, we meet her at Waterloo station. You do _not_ attempt to arrest her and instead we all go to the MI-6 building to get our next instructions. Rachel is not our enemy here, and the moment you do anything against her, I call Smith and get you sent back to Del Oro on the next flight."

Josh, being half-tired, didn't understand the full impact of what Kat had just said, so replied with, "All right."

"She's getting here at about seven, so be sure that you're awake," Kat said, turning around and walking out of the bathroom. Josh didn't hear the door opening and shutting, so assumed that Kat was still in the room, although with no TV blaring he was beginning to wonder if she was rummaging through his drawers.

A bit of a pointless effort, seeing as he had yet to unpack any of his clothes.

After five more minutes of shaving and ensuring that he hadn't left any random patches behind, Josh brushed his teeth quickly before walking out of the bathroom and turning off the light...only to see Kat sprawled on his bed, fast asleep.

Josh quickly debated the options -- let her sleep there for the night and deal with the repercussions in the morning or wake her up and feel the wrath of Morning Monster Kat -- and the decision was both quick and a no-brainer: let her sleep.

He took her shoes off and placed them in front of the drawers on her 'side' of the bed before taking her jacket off, folding it up and placing it on top of the drawers. He moved to get changed for bed himself, then paused.

Normally he slept in only boxer shorts, but he really didn't want to give Kat any more ammo to throw at him in the morning. Instead, he rummaged around in his suitcase and found an old, wrinkled pair of sweatpants which he'd tossed in as an afterthought, and decided to wear those instead.

Josh got into bed, ensuring he didn't disturb Kat too much, and settled down, staring at the ceiling for a few moments. After a minute's consideration, he grabbed one of the pillows on his side of the bed and shoved it under the blankets, creating a Josh-Kat boundary, one which he hoped would last the night.

As he drifted off into sleep, what Kat had said wandered through his mind, and he found himself thinking _why would Dad send me here on a lie?_

ooooooooooooooo

Rachel -- and Neil -- were just landing in Heathrow when Kat woke up the next morning. Sunlight was glaring through the windows, and she closed her eyes tightly and murmured something before snuggling back down beside the object she had her arm wrapped around.

Wait..._what?_

Opening her eyes, she was near-blinded by the light falling from the window directly into her face and was forced to close them in order to adjust to the brightness. She caught a hint of Josh's deodorant and panic started to swell up in her chest.

Sitting up, she turned away from the window and was able to open her eyes and stare at the door to the corridor. After a few seconds her eyes had adjusted enough for her to look back towards the window…and saw Josh sitting on a chair, looking at her and grinning widely. Glancing over at the bed, she saw what she'd been cuddling: a pillow.

"If you say a word about this to anyone, I swear to God I will kill you," Kat growled at Josh. His grin didn't falter as she grabbed her jacket and shoes, putting both on and heading out the door. "Seven AM; we need to get over to Waterloo station."

ooooooooooooooo

Neil had already come and gone by the time Josh and Kat arrived -- spending a few years posted in the center of London city would give anyone intimate knowledge of the city's streets and public transport services. Rachel, on the other hand, hadn't set foot in London in seven years, perhaps longer, and was paying for it with extremely limited knowledge on where she was supposed to be heading.

"Feeling lost?" Kat muttered in Rachel's ear, smirking when the latter started. "I really hope you've got a good explanation as to why Josh and I are here, else I'm taking you straight back to Del Oro."

"I believe I have a half-clue advantage on you," Rachel said, stepping away from Kat. "We need --"

"No, you're not deciding anything just yet. I've been pulled around like a puppet too much already to have yet another person jerking me around." Kat caught sight of Josh and beckoned him over before stepping forward to stand next to Rachel once more. "If anyone's going to be deciding what we're doing, it'll be me," she added, glaring up at Rachel.

"I suppose it'll give me the most peace. So then, what's the plan, lead agent Ryan?"

"Josh's hotel is nearest, we'll have out meeting there," Kat said as Josh approached, the latter raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"We are?"

"You heard Rachel, I'm lead agent. Thus you follow my authority." Kat walked away from Josh and Rachel, the latter quirking an eyebrow at the former.

"Is it me or has she gotten quite abrasive in my absence?"

"She's had a bad day," Josh said by way of explanation before following Kat.

ooooooooooooooo

"Someone was obviously looking for something in here," Kat said, kicking aside a pillow which only an hour before had been resting on the bed. Everything that Josh had bought with him was ripped or torn, strewn about all over the room, or missing.

"Whatever they were looking for, they probably found it. My mission information's missing," he added, holding up an empty envelope.

"Are you sure it's not in the room somewhere?" Rachel said, beginning to clear up the mess. She opened her mouth to say something more, but a glare accompanied by a hand slicing across a neck from Kat -- both out of Josh's range of vision -- shut her up.

"I've already tripled-checked the room, it's not here."

"Then we need to get out of here as quickly as we can," Rachel added, turning to look at Kat. "Which hotel are you staying at?"

"One near Hyde Park. But if they know Josh is here and they see me, wouldn't they --"

"Who sent you on this mission?"

Kat faltered, wondering what to say. She knew Rachel was likely following orders other than those given to her by N-Tek -- why else would Kat have been sent to retrieve her? -- but she was unsure as to how Josh would respond to that knowledge.

"I _wasn't_ on a mission until you two turned up, now it seems like I've got to cancel meeting up with my friend, or hope that the mission finishes before I'm due to meet up with her."

"We rendezvous at your hotel," Rachel said, inclining her head to indicate Kat. "If they do see you and assume you're on a mission with Josh, having the three of us in the same hotel would enable us to respond to any emergency quicker than if we were separated."

"Hey, who's the lead agent here?"

"My mistake," Rachel said solemnly, but Kat saw her lips twitching upwards in amusement. "What are your orders?"

Kat sighed. "We rendezvous at Central Park Hotel and you two books rooms there."

ooooooooooooooo

After a slight bit on confusion at the check-in desk -- at which Josh and Rachel almost had to stay in the same room -- Josh and Rachel quickly put their luggage in their respective rooms before heading down a flight of stairs to Kat's room.

"All I was told was to head to MI-6 and get their help on locating Rachel, although from what I've heard from you two, you were already in N-Tek custody when I was given that information."

"I was given a little help," Rachel said, fiddling with the chain of the necklace she was wearing. "Although heading to MI-6 may not be a bad idea in itself: I know a few people there who'd be willing to help me."

Josh nodded and Kat shrugged: neither had much idea what else to do, and surely Smith wouldn't have sent Josh to London with instructions to go to MI-6 if they weren't to be followed.

ooooooooooooooo

Forty-five minutes later, the three agents were standing in front of the entrance to MI-6, waiting for two agents whom had been called up to escort them around the building to show up. The door at the front buzzed open a few seconds after the guard at the entrance got a message on his pager, and stepped aside to let them pass.

They didn't get too far before one MI-6 agent strolled up to them, her brown hair working its way out of the ponytail she'd put it in and looked at them with eyes the same shade as Rachel's.

"Team Steel I presume?" she asked, shoving the file she was holding under one arm and held the other out. "Welcome to MI-6."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:

The woman led Josh, Kat and Rachel through the corridors of MI-6, occasionally getting glances from a few people at their workstations. A couple whispered to their neighbors in the next cubicle while others went back to 'work', instead loading up intra-house messaging services and passing along messages to friends in other departments.

Not before long they'd moved away from people-inhabited areas and were heading up a couple of flights of stairs. Away from the combined offices the corridors were dimly-lit, with nothing but row upon row of doors with simple name plates only offering the name of the person who worked there, with no other details.

Evidently you were supposed to know who worked where and what their job was.

Reaching the third floor, the woman who was escorting them took a sudden, sharp left turn and walked halfway down the corridor before stopping outside a door labelled "J. A. Leeds". Seeing the name, gears in Kat's mind started connecting, while Josh put the name down to coincidence, although kept a bit of scepticism around.

"This won't take a minute, I'm sure," she said, knocking on the door. "Although you'll need to wait outside," she added, getting a "come in" response and walking into the room.

Josh raised his eyebrows in surprise before glancing over at Kat, who gave a small shrug. The only one who didn't seem confused was Rachel, who was standing to the side and looking blankly into the middle-distance.

"We're all set," the woman said walking out of the room a minute later. "We'll be using briefing room 1N7 down on the first floor." She turned to look at Rachel. "Since you know what's going on," the woman said to her, "do you still want to sit in on the meeting?"

"I think it would be best, Julie, just in case there's some detail which slipped through. I believe I was expected to talk in the meeting anyway."

At that, it was Kat's turn to be surprised.

"Julie Leeds?" Kat managed to splutter out, looking at her in disbelief.

"How do you know of me?" Julie asked.

"Russia, four years ago. I was on the team called in from N-Tek to help rescue you."

Julie looked confused for a few moments before shaking her head and walking away. "Room 1N7 is on the first floor. The meeting's due to start in fifteen minutes, but I can walk you there now if you wish."

"That'd be preferable," Rachel said, following her sister down the corridor while Josh and Kat made up the tail end of the group, sending confused glances to each other.

"Julie Leeds? Is she a relative of Rachel's then?" Josh whispered, making sure to keep half a flight of stairs between them and the Leeds siblings.

"Rachel's sister. She and Rachel's parents were involved in a kidnapping plot four years ago orchestrated by Vostok. Rachel was barred from having any involvement in the mission, but stowed away. I caught her, sent her back to Del Oro and she stayed there until her family were found."

"Rachel, directly disobeying orders? Doesn't sound like her."

"I guess everything changes when family's involved," Kat finished as they approached the briefing room. "I don't suppose we're going to be getting prior information as to why we're here?" Kat asked Julie, who shook her head.

"Any information you require will be given to you during the briefing. Anything else you wish to know, you can ask at the end." Julie punched in a code on the keypad next to the door, pushing the door wide open when it unlocked. "Mission information will be given out at the start of the meeting. I'll be expecting to see you once the meeting is over," she added as Josh, Kat and Rachel walked in, and Julie closed the door behind them.

Josh listened out for a click to indicate that the door was now locked, but it never came. Instead, he walked over to the desk and sat opposite Rachel, Kat slinking along and sitting next to Josh. The two kept their eyes on Rachel but, like when Julie had made a little detour, Rachel had her eyes focused on the wall and didn't even start when other agents started pouring in.

The room quickly filled up, the agents getting there early getting lucky and managing to get seats: when the first agent appeared who was unable to get a seat, Josh wondered if they were sitting in on a mission and taking up three people's places, but when a group of four extra agents wandered in, that thought was quickly erased.

"Shall I assume everyone is present?" a male voice said, his bald head catching the artificial lights as he walked around the gathered agents and headed towards the front of the room, evicting the current occupant of the chair at the head of the table. Meekly she dashed away, soon blending into the background.

"Nothing in this room is to be taken out," he began, handing around folders to the nearest people. "All documents here are for your eyes only. You are prohibited from removing any documents given to you here, and are also prohibited from discussing any matters spoken of here to any other agents in this organization."

Josh received a file, passing one to Kat as well before giving the stack to the nearest agent. He opened it, quickly scanning, but didn't get further than the pre-amble at the top of the page before the man spoke again.

"Those who wish to discuss such matters, and have a bloody good reason to, must receive permission from me before discussing anything. I must warn you, there is a ninety-nine point nine percent chance you will be refused permission."

The man took a deep breath and looked over the occupants of the room, eyes hovering over Rachel for a few seconds before he spoke once more.

"Special Agent Rachel Leeds, would you care to enlighten us as to the current situation?"

"I would be glad to," Rachel said, standing up and walking towards the front of the room. "I am assuming you are all aware with the current world-wide situation with the organization P.F.F.E?" she asked rhetorically as she passed over Kat and Josh, the latter shaking his head indicating he didn't know.

"They have been spreading tendrils across most major, and some non-major counterterrorism organizations for a number of years. We have been tracking them for almost as long as they have existed, and we believe that now is the time to bring their organization down.

"Currently, they are focusing their attention on N-Tek, planning on --"

"Isn't N-Tek just a sports company?"

"Read your damn file!"

Rachel allowed herself a small smile of amusement at the exchange between the two agents before continuing. "Planning on using N-Tek's global jurisdiction and practically limitless influence to spread further into the organizations they have already reached, and to break into new places.

"I know we have a mixture of ages and experience here, but there is a reason for that. MI-6 is one of the organizations which has been infiltrated, was one of the first, and the agents sitting in this room represent the people we know we can trust explicitly. We know that none of you in this room are part of P.F.F.E, whereas with a large number of agents outside of this room we cannot be certain.

"In all honesty, we are relying on each and every person in this room to work to their full capabilities and destroy P.F.F.E for good." Rachel looked over at the man who had started the meeting, and he nodded.

"You will each be given separate mission briefings later on in the week. Depending on experience, you may or may not be placed with someone with a higher or lesser amount of experience, and you will also be given details of which organizations you will be working with to destroy P.F.F.E.

"I will now pass over to our European representative," Rachel finished, stepping away from the front of the room and returning to her seat.

"So you've been working with MI-6 all this time?" Kat hissed across the table, and Rachel just nodded, keeping her eyes on the front of the room. Kat also doing so, her eyes growing wide when she saw the European representative step up.

Jean Mairot.

"You have got to be kidding me," Kat said, burying her head in her hands.

ooooooooooooooo

As soon as the meeting was over Kat stormed out, Josh following close behind and trying to hear what she was muttering to herself.

"--manipulative _bastard_--"

Okay, so she wasn't in the best of moods, but he decided to try and stem the tide before it turned into a tsunami.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing more than a slight case of being jerked around by him for the past _week_! Oh, it starts innocently enough, and then before I know it I'm earning frequent flyer miles at the rate an international businessman would be envious of!"

Too late.

Grabbing Kat's shoulder gently, Josh maneuvered her into the nearest empty room, kicking the door shut and forcing her into a nearby chair. Almost as soon as she sat down she stood back up again, trying -- unsuccessfully -- to push past Josh, who just forced her back down onto the chair.

"Now who wants to bet Leigh is in on all of this as well?" Kat growled once she realized there was no way of getting past Josh unless he allowed her. "He just calls me up after years of not talking to me and gives me information which forced me onto this damn ghost hunt."

Josh just stood watch, making sure that Kat didn't try and escape before she was at least half-calmed down, and let her ramblings wash over him. After a while Kat had calmed down -- or at least, wasn't ranting and raving any more -- and Josh let her stand up, waiting to see what she was planning on doing next.

Almost in the blink of an eye, Kat was out of the room and managed to get three steps down the corridor before slamming into Julie.

"Agent Ryan, Agent Steel," Julie said curtly, readjusting her glasses on her nose.

"McGrath, currently," Josh corrected, and Julie gave him an 'okay, whatever you say' look. "You weren't wearing glasses when we arrived."

"Contacts dry my eyes out when I'm staring at a screen. I hadn't arrived much before you did this morning, and was just starting my shift." Kat started to shift away, but Julie caught her arm. "I wouldn't be so quick to disappear. Leeds wants to talk to you two privately."

"Rachel?" Josh asked, trying to clarify the situation, and Julie shook her head.

"No, James Leeds."

ooooooooooooooo

Despite what Josh had initially thought, the fact that there were three agents using the name 'Leeds' at MI-6, they were all related. James and Julie were 'official' agents, while Rachel was a 'transfer' in their eyes, working for them but really belonging in a different agency.

Julie had to leave to run some errands, write a report or something of that nature, and had quickly disappeared down the hallways of MI-6, leading Rachel to remember where they were supposed to be heading.

Fortunately, the place they needed to head to was James' office, where Julie had visited quickly earlier in the morning.

"N-Tek Agents McGrath and Ryan to see you, sir," Rachel said as she opened the door and peered her head around. She waved her hand, indicating that Josh and Kat enter the room, and she shut the door behind them.

"Take a seat," James said, waving his hand in the vague direction of a couple of uncomfortable-looking wooden seats, his attention still focused on the computer in front of him. "I am assuming you know why I asked you here?"

Josh and Kat exchanged glances, and James sighed and took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes as he did so. Putting his glasses back on, he looked at the two agents over the rim, the beginning hints of annoyance in his green eyes.

"Rachel has assured me that I can trust you two more than almost anyone under my command, but as you can probably tell from our current situation, I'm not willing to believe what anyone says.

"I was against the idea of bringing you here, into the heart of MI-6, but I was outnumbered and outvoted on the issue. Had Mairot not been in our company you would not be here: give him whatever thanks you think necessary.

"Even though you work under N-Tek, for the duration of your stay here you will be working under my jurisdiction. There will be no arguments, no complaints and --" his eyes rested on Kat "-- no disobeying orders. If you are doing something, I expect the command to have been issued by someone in a higher position of authority than you are."

Kat hid her glare, instead folding her arms across her chest and adopting a relaxed demeanour. Josh accepted the terms, not willing to tread on any toes while he was there, and both agents began to head out of the room.

"There is one more issue," James said, Josh stopping with his hand on the doorknob, Kat already half-way out the door. "Agent Ryan will not be present in this investigation: she will, instead, be heading back to Del Oro. As a result, Agent McGrath, your partner will be Agent Rachel Leeds."

"This is unbelievable," Kat whispered to Josh as James turned his attention back to the computer.

ooooooooooooooo

"Are you just expecting me to leave quietly?"

"Yes, I am. You were invited here as a guest, and we are now asking you, politely, to leave."

Josh winced as he walked up to the doors leading to Rachel's temporary office. From the sounds of it, Kat was currently kicking up a storm about having to leave almost as soon as she arrived.

He really pitied whoever was working on either side of Rachel.

Josh looked down at the folder he was carrying, debating about whether or not to knock and give Rachel the file, as requested, or walk away and hope he ran into her in the hallways later that day.

"I'd hardly call your father 'polite'; huge ego on an inflated pedestal more like. I guess I shouldn't have expected any different from him, having known you. I guess being a secret agent isn't the only thing which runs in your family."

Josh managed to step back to avoid being slammed in the face by the door which Kat had just slammed open.

"Ryan!" Rachel yelled down the hallway as Kat stormed off, catching the attention of a couple of wandering agents and drawing out a couple of office-bound people, investigating what the source of the commotion was.

"Is that the file from Agent Leeds?" Rachel asked, taking the file from Josh's hands before he had time to answer. Regaining his composure, he turned to walk into Rachel's office to talk to her, just in time to see the door being slammed in his face.

"Guess everyone's PMSing today..." Just muttered as he walked off.

ooooooooooooooo

"You know, this would have all turned out a lot easier if you'd said straight-up what was going on."

"I believe that's what I had been doing, Agent Ryan."

"I said _straight-up_, meaning you told me without having to drag me all over the world. I've been kidnapped by you, sent to São Paulo --"

"That was on Jeff's insistence; I had nothing to do with that."

"-- then I get back to Del Oro only to be told I need to go to London, where I'm then told to go back to Del Oro! If you're not going to tell me what the deal is with this run-around, then I'm going to refuse to have anything to do with this mission any more."

Nodding once in acceptance, Mairot told Kat the exact details behind the run-around.

As he predicted, she exploded at him.

ooooooooooooooo

"You wanted to see me?" Josh said, walking in to Julie's room, feeling a bit discouraged. It was venturing into early evening and he'd done nothing but errands for the other senior agents. Sort these files, give this to agent so-and-so on the fifth floor, make me coffee -- and no, the last one hadn't been a joke, but Josh assumed that after he had tasted Josh's 'attempt', he'd never ask again.

"Close the door," Julie said, not looking up from her computer. Josh did as he was told, then made his way to one of the empty chairs in the room. Unlike her father, the chairs in Julie's room were large and comfortable, a way of telling the agents they were welcome to come and chat.

"And yes, I did want to see you," Julie said, pushing a file across the table towards Josh, who inwardly groaned.

"Who's this one for?" Josh said, vaguely attempting to keep his voice neutral.

"It's for you."

Eyeing Julie cautiously, as if he was expecting her to say that it was actually for agent Josh McGrath who worked on the eight floor, Josh picked up the file and flicked it open.

On the very first page was a family photo, Rachel and Julie sitting on their parents' laps, Rachel looking no older than about nine, Julie barely out of toddler age, all four of them smiling widely at the camera.

"Yes, it is correct. Rachel hated it when we had that photo taken; our mother had to spend at least an hour trying to get her looking presentable, scrubbing the dirt off her cheeks and making sure she didn't pull off her dress and sneak out to play in the mud again. Or worse, sneak out and _not_ take off her dress."

Josh raised his eyebrows at this: he had imagined Rachel being the perfect child...at least until her parents' backs were turned. From what Kat had filled in during her time at N-Tek, he'd pictured Rachel as a bratty, know-it-all child who was the ringleader in everything yet never got caught.

Knowing that she preferred to play in the mud over 'playing dress-up' was a huge knock to his imagination.

"That all changed when she hit her teenage years, though," Julie continued, inclining her head towards the file in Josh's hands. "As soon as she hit thirteen it was like a switch went off: the first time she tried to put on make-up was a bit of a disaster though. Sadly Mum cleaned all the stuff off her face before I could get a picture. I was grounded for laughing at her so much though." Julie stuck her tongue out in a disgusted manner.

"Mascara was all over her cheeks, blush on her forehead -- do _not_ ask me how she managed that, I don't know -- and lipstick all over her mouth...and nose. You know how clowns look, all-white faces and bright red lipstick? That's what she looked like, a clown. When I managed to speak I asked her if she was planning on running away and joining the circus."

"I did, however, manage to get a photo of her first boyfriend making out...or rather sucking each other's faces off, from what it looked like. She absolutely hated him when they were together, but when they broke up she was all swooning and _in looove_ and all that stuff. I never got why those two started going out. Of course, I made it perfectly clear that I didn't like him."

"From the way you just said that, I'm assuming you didn't just tell him that."

"Nope," said Julie, a wide smile on her face. "Planted a bucket of bright red paint on top of Rachel's door one night when I knew Shane was invited over. They both got soaked, and I made the mistake of saying that Rachel was now a scarlet woman. That probably earned me the longest time I spent grounded, and a thorough interrogation as to how I knew that name.

"Believe me when I say my dad knows a fair few interrogation techniques if you ever get on the wrong side of him."

Julie finished speaking, and Josh looked up, wondering if she was going to start on another story about herself and Rachel.

"So...why did you tell me all of this?" Josh finally asked, standing up as he did so.

"What's the point in having an elder sister if you can't embarrass her boyfriend?" Julie said with a wink. "And also as a warning: never cross a Leeds."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve:

_Nine Years Previously_

"Break it up, break it up!" a young Chinese girl cried, running up to where a group of children were, the sound of punches and kicks echoing across half the playground.

"Piss off, bitch!" Roxanne yelled, shoving the girl back hard, causing her to fall onto the gravel surface. "Go back to fucking China, you fucking Chink!"

"I was born here," the girl began to sniffle, blood trickling down a small cut on her arm, beginning to stain her yellow armband red.

"Hey, bleed some more and you can go join the Bloods...if they'd accept a filthy Chink like you, that is!" Andy said, standing over the girl, tapping his gray shirt. "What were you planning on doing, _June_? Not like an eleven year old brat can do anything against one of us, let alone a dozen or more!"

One last kick was thrown before the group parted and June could see the body lying in the middle of the ground, bleeding profusely.

"Damian!" June yelled, scrabbling to get up and run over to her brother. She pushed past Andy, not getting far before he grabbed her arm, twisting it around her back.

"You're not going anywhere," Andy said, increasing the pressure on her arm. A snap, a cry of pain and June was lying on the ground, crying in pain and arm at an odd angle.

"Fucking bitch, fucking Chink," Andy growled, spitting on June before walking away. The rest of the group began to disperse, those who were wearing gray accessories taking them off and stuffing in pockets where available, or given to another person.

"I'll take that for you," Andy said, holding his hand out as Kat removed a gray scrap of cloth from around her neck. Kat just looked at him before handing the item off to Roxanne, who slipped it into her pocket along with her own wristbands.

"You're starting to push your luck, Andy," Roxanne said, squeezing in between him and Kat. "You not learn anything from the beating you took a few months back? Kat belongs to Leigh, and there isn't anything you can do about it."

Andy snorted. "Leigh's a fucking nutcase. He bailed on his last case, gave the excuse that he couldn't see!" Seconds later, Andy found himself on the ground, on his back, with a very irate Kat standing above him. Her fist raised, he flinched, expecting another punch, but was surprised when Kat was pulled away and he was helped back on to his feet.

"Peterson," Andy growled as the teacher left him and instead walked over to Kat, beginning to grill her over what had happened, and whether she knew anything about the beatings of Damian and June. She shrugged and scowled at the teacher, saying nothing, yet he managed to read from her body language that she was at least partly responsible.

As a result, she was suspended for two weeks.

ooooooooooooooo

"So, you coming or what?" Leigh demanded a few hours later, hanging over the edge of the roof. "We need a couple of runners, got your skateboard with you?"

"Yeah, I got it. What's going on?" Kat said, grabbing the mentioned item from her desk before handing it to Leigh.

"Nothing special, just need to keep the police off our tail while Andric sells some merchandise."

"Quick and easy," Kat added, precariously balancing on the windowsill. Leigh threw the skateboard, wheels up, onto the roof, before grabbing hold of Kat's hands and pulling her up.

"Gonna be a clear night tonight," Leigh said, a hint of relief in his face as he looked towards the sky where the sun was setting. Kat took one look at the sky, stuck out her tongue and went to pick up her skateboard.

"Ready to go?" she asked, pulling Leigh's attention away from the sky. She jerked her thumb towards the nearby fence and he squinted, before seeing what she was pointing at.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

ooooooooooooooo

Kat had been positioned as one of the early alerts, sitting on the doorstep of an empty house, feet on the skateboard and rolling it back and forth. She occasionally glanced up and down the street, checking for any police of do-gooder civilians, but so far had seen nothing. Everyone who had approached Kat she knew either by face or by body language: druggies going to get their fix.

Kat paused, hearing the walkie-talking stuffed in her back pocket sparking to life, but it was just a jumble of numbers basically translating to 'everything is clear, report anything suspicious'.

"Yeah, like I didn't know that already," Kat muttered to herself, looking up as she heard a thumping sound above her. Narrowing her eyes, she looked up to see a figure walking along the runway connecting the warehouses, and smiled.

"Leigh, thought you were supposed to be checking the southern quarter."

"Got some extra time," he said, walking down the stairs and heading towards her. "So," he added, pulling Kat into a half-hug, "Enjoying your time here?"

Kat sighed, leaning back into Leigh's arms. "As if."

"Parental units are away tonight, you could spent the night at mine," Leigh said after a pause, and Kat smiled.

"Love to. How --" Kat began, but was cut off when Leigh's walkie-talkie crackled. Removing his arms from around Kat, he grabbed the device and began talking into it.

"Seriously? No, I get it...Yeah...All right, I'm on my way back. Some suspicious-looking guys are approaching, got to get back to my post," Leigh said, kissing Kat on the forehead before moving off. "I expect you at my place afterwards!" he called out as he disappeared.

"Count on it."

ooooooooooooooo

"What's going on?" Kat said, appearing at one of the warehouses owned by her gang. The sound of someone being beaten was clearly audiable, sickening Kat and reminding her of her own initiation into the gang.

"Some moron blew the mission," Roxanne said, walking up to stand beside Kat. "Dunno who," she added before Kat could ask. "With tempers as bad as they are in there right now? I'd be dragged in for a beating for just asking a question."

Frowning, Kat walked forwards, ignoring Roxanne's attempted grab for her arm, and looked into the main room. She looked away after a couple of seconds, settling her stomach before taking a deep breath and walking into the room.

Leigh was in the middle of a group of five people, lip split open, scratches on his arms and one finger bent back unnaturally.

"You're fucking useless Leigh, you know that?!" Kurt yelled into Leigh's ear, spittle flying through the air and landing on his cheek. "Shit, one easy as fuck mission, and you blow it! Andric and half our team are in jail cells right now, being asked why they were hawking drugs on the street!" He stepped back from Leigh, then brought his knee up, slamming it under Leigh's chin.

"Kurt, cool it!" Kat yelled, walking up to Kurt and glaring at him. "We all slip up one time or another, why's this time so different?"

Kurt snorted. "Oh, ain't that cute, you're defending your boyfriend." He turned to look at Leigh. "See that Sanders? Your girl's sticking up for your ass, God knows why. You fucked up _again_. Alexei is probably only going to give you one more chance. Mess that up and you're out."

"Again? What happened the first time?" Kat asked, looking from Kurt to Leigh, confused.

"First time? First time this fucker did exactly what happened tonight: he claimed he _couldn't see_! Night goes down and he claims he's as blind as a bat, yet he's only recently started having this problem." Kurt knelt down in front of Leigh, looking him straight in the eye. "You're a pansy, a weakling, and you can't do anything right. Shit, you've been hitting on Kat for the past year, and you haven't even fucked her yet!" Leigh glared at Kurt, the latter just laughing. "Oh come on, _everyone_ here knows. What, are you a fucking fag as well as a useless shit?"

ooooooooooooooo

"Excuse me, you need to righten you seat. We'll be beginning out descent into Del Oro soon."

Kat mumbled something as the flight attendant shook her shoulder, rousing her out of slumber. Rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hands, she glanced around and reminded herself that she was flying back to Del Oro, not watching her...whatever Leigh had been to her...get pummeled.

Pulling the blanket off, Kat instantly regretted it when the cold air hit her and, shivering, she drew it back over herself. Risking one hand, she pulled her seat upright and prepared for the descent.

Kat mentally ran through any excuses she could give to Smith to explain why she was back early, but none seemed worthy enough, and instead tried to think about what she'd do with her free time.

_Free time,_ she repeated, mentally shuddering. _I was bored enough when I was sent home on medical leave, let alone _choosing _it._

"Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot announced through the tannoy system, "Del Oro International is currently experiencing bad weather conditions making it inadvisable to land. We'll be making a detour to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, when you will be able to board a transfer flight when the weather's cleared. We apologize for any inconvenience caused."

Kat sighed, closing her eyes and resting her head against the back of her chair. She had been hoping to get off the plane at Del Oro International, find her car and get back home, but was now also faced with the added problem of trying to get from Santa Barbara to Del Oro when she really, _really_ didn't want to go through all the hassle of boarding yet another plane.

A couple of hours later found her waiting outside the main entrance of the airport, trying desperately to get a hold of a taxi company. She had no idea what had happened to any of them: they were either non-existent or not answering their phones.

Muttering a string of curses under her breath, Kat stuffed one hand in her jacket pocket, scrolling through the names on her phone to see if anyone would be willing to pick her up at five in the morning.

All of her N-Tek contacts were out: she didn't know who was a mole and who wasn't, so calling them up was just asking for trouble. Outside of N-Tek there were a few friends, all but one of whom would be happy at ferrying her across California, with the one remaining being unable to.

Taking a deep breath as she hovered on the 'S' section of her phonebook, she pressed the 'call' button and waited for her phone to connect. After four rings, the person on the other end picked up.

"Hello?"

"Leigh, hi."

"Katherine, I know I said to call me when you got back, but I was hoping it would be at a more sociable hour."

"I kinda need your help. I'm stuck in Santa Barbara airport with no way to get back to Del Oro."

"Call a cab," Leigh said, yawning when he finished the sentence.

"You think I haven't tried? They're all out napping or defunct."

"So, what, you expect me to drive out to Santa Barbara to come and pick you up?" Kat paused for a moment before opening her mouth to speak, but was interrupted before she could say one word. "I'm blind, remember? Look, I'll see if I can get a cab to run up there to pick you up if you'll just let me sleep."

"All right, thanks Leigh," Kat said, ending the call. Placing her cell on her bag, she realized that her hand was shaking, and she stuffed that one into a pocket, also.

Thunder rumbled ominously overhead, and Kat muttered, "Great." If the downpour was going to be anything like that over Del Oro, then no one on her flight would be heading back that morning.

By the time the taxi turned up, the rumble of thunder had turned into a full outburst, rain so thick that it was hard to see past a couple of meters, lightning cutting across the clouds, and thunder deafeningly loud.

"Del Oro," Kat said as tossed her bag in onto the floor, clambering in after it. The driver raised an eyebrow, and Kat elaborated on her address, wondering how much the taxi was going to be as it drove off at a snail's pace.

ooooooooooooooo

"Grfuha," Kat murbled as the strains of her cell's ringtone woke her up, and blindly she flung her arm out to try and pick up the offending device from her bedside table. Finding it, she pressed the 'accept' button and held it to her ear. "What?" she growled, and began to fume when she heard chuckling on the other side.

"After the nice response I gave you when you woke me up, all I get is a growl? Good to know I get back as much as I give."

"I really do not want to be dealing with this right now," Kat said, finally opening her eyes and wincing at the streaming sunlight. "I just got back and --"

"So you're allowed to disturb me, but I'm not allowed to disturb you?"

"I didn't--"

"I got a nice little letter from your friend, paper and CD. Seeing as he knows I'm blind, I'm assuming the paper copy is for you." Leigh waited for Kat to say something, and when she didn't, he continued. "Whatever is going on, I'm going to assume that I'm a bystander. Needed, but a bystander nevertheless. I can understand if you'd think that I'm incapable when you read the letter--"

"And what makes you think I'm going to trot over to wherever the hell you live, just so I can read some damn letter?" Kat's turn to interrupt, and Leigh was momentarily speechless. She sighed, sitting up in her bed and transferred the phone to her other ear. "I'll read the letter, but we are not meeting at your place."

"Not an option. The CD I got was clear: you come over to mine and read the letter; no two ways about it. I guess there must be something in your letter he doesn't want to risk releasing to the outside world, huh?"

Kat fumed, knowing exactly what was on the paper, and that there was no way she was going to get out of it.

"All right, where do you live?" she relented, grabbing a pen and beginning to write Leigh's address on her arm. Stopping after the fifth letter, she almost dropped the phone in shock.

"Katherine?" Leigh asked after a few moments' silence. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just...you only live a couple of floors above me."

ooooooooooooooo

As with the previous notes she had received, as soon as she had finished reading it she set fire to it. The dog shook its head and sneezed at the strange new smell, and Kat walked over to open a window to allow the smoke to diffuse out.

Aside from welcoming her in -- and yelling at Amber to stop trying to jump up on Kat -- Leigh hadn't said a word, instead waiting for Kat to speak.

"I really do not like this." Kat finally spoke, flumping down on the sofa next to Leigh, letting out a heavy sigh. "I know he doesn't know everything that went down, but does he really expect us to be able to just walk back in as if nothing had changed?"

"Perhaps he does, or perhaps he's got another trick up his sleeve. Amber," Leigh warned, having heard the dog sniffing around nearby. "Sorry, I think she needs feeding." He stood up and walked towards the kitchen, opening the fridge and taking out a can of dog food. "Do you want anything to drink?" he added, and Kat shook her head. "I'll be taking your silence as a no."

"Sorry, I --"

"Forgot I was blind?" Leigh finished, putting some food into Amber's bowl before throwing the now-empty can in the bin. "You'd be surprised at the amount of people who think that. When they see me without my cane or Amber with her coat, they forget I'm only using four of five."

"At least you know they're not making exceptions for you," Kat said as Leigh sat back down.

"I suppose that's one way of thinking about it. So, what was in your letter?"

Kat hesitated before telling him what had been written, omitting the detail of her working for N-Tek and it being a counter-terrorism agency. When she finished, Leigh was looking at her, near-speechless.

"So...I take it that bit of information wasn't on your CD then?" she added as Leigh stood up and began to pace across the living room, tripping over Kat's discarded coat as he did so.

Acting on instinct, Kat grabbed him around the waist and held him steady until he regained his balance. "Sofa's here," she said, grabbing his hand and guiding it to the armrest of the afore-mentioned furniture.

"Okay, I've got it," Leigh said, standing in place while Kat picked up her coat.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have --"

"Treated me like any other normal person? To be honest, I'll need a stack of that stored up if I'm going to be heading back to Novikov's Revolution."


End file.
